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WALKER EVANS, (American 1903-1975), TRAFFIC, NEW YORK CITY, "XI V, c. 1930, used in "Walker Evans...

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:8,000.00 - 12,000.00 USD
WALKER EVANS, (American 1903-1975), TRAFFIC, NEW YORK CITY,  XI V, c. 1930, used in  Walker Evans...
WALKER EVANS
(American 1903-1975)
TRAFFIC, NEW YORK CITY
"XI V, c. 1930, used in "Walker Evans: First and Last", also Hound and Horn, Vol. IV #1, Oct-Dec 1930" inscribed in pencil on verso
gelatin silver print
51/2 x 85/8 in. (13.3 x 21.9 cm)
circa 1930
ESTIMATE: $8,000-12,000
PROVENANCE
Graphics International Ltd., WASHINGTON, D.C.
LITERATURE
Walker Evans, "New York City," HOUND & HORN, vol. IV, no. 1, (October-December 1930), between pp. 42-43 (illustrated)
WALKER EVANS: FIRST AND LAST, NEW YORK, Harper & Row, 1978, p. 3 (illustrated)
WALKER EVANS AT WORK, NEW YORK, Harper & Row, 1982, p. 29 (illustrated and variant illustrated)
Lloyd Fonvielle, WALKER EVANS, Aperture Masters of Photography, no. 10, Millertyon, New York, Aperture, 1993, p. 13 (illustrated)
Maria Morris Hambourg, et al, WALKER EVANS, NEW YORK, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000, p. 145, pl. 3 (illustrated)
Jeff L. Rosenheim, ed., UNCLASSIFIED: A WALKER EVANS ANTHOLOGY, NEW YORK, Scalo, 2000, p. 177, no. 27 (illustrated)
In 1928, Walker Evans lived in Brooklyn Heights. He worked on Wall Street at night and wandered the city during the day making photographs with a 21/4" x 41/4" hand camera. He would often finish a roll of film without leaving his own neighborhood. This photograph was made from a couple of stories above street level near Borough Hall in Brooklyn, only a few blocks from Evans's home. Until recent scholarship proved otherwise, it was previously identified as a site in Manhattan.
In this period, Evans was seeking his own style. A strategy often borrowed from European "New Vision" photography at this time involved looking down from above to emphasize the geometric composition of a photograph. This is one of at least two exposures of the same motif. In this exposure, Evans has captured a man just as he places a hat on his head. This was one of the first four photographs by Evans that Lincoln Kirstein published in HOUND & HORN in 1930.