WALKER EVANS (1903-1975)

Main Street Faces, Morgantown, W. Virginia

Details

WALKER EVANS (1903-1975)
Main Street Faces, Morgantown, W. Virginia
Gelatin silver print. 1936. Title and date in pencil on the verso.
5.5/8 x 8.7/8in. (14.3 x 22.5cm.)

Provenance

Mia Agee;
LIGHT Gallery, New York.

Literature

See: The Museum of Modern Art, American Photograph, part I, pl. 39 (there dated 1935); Mora and Hill, Walker Evans: The Hungry Eye, p. 185; Keller, Walker Evans: The Getty Museum Collection, p. 140, fig. 428 for a cropped version of the same image.

Lot Essay

This photograph originates from a group of Walker Evans prints sold to the LIGHT Gallery by Mia Agee, the wife of James Agee. In 1936 Evans and Agee produced the work for what would become the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. (Also see lots 32 and 35.)

This image was included in the Museum of Modern Art's 1938 exhibition "American Photographs". In addition, it is one of the eighty seven images to also be included in the book American Photographs. One hundred images appeared in the exhibition, however only fifty three were used in the book along with an additional thirty four supplementary images.