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Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | J 921 EVANS | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Determined to "capture life has he saw it," Walker Evans (1903-1975) became one of the great photographers of the twentieth century, shooting in the New York City subways as well as the American heartland. His subjects included posters, billboards, and the Brooklyn Bridge--but he is best known for the stirring photographs he took of farmers during the Great Depression. This handsome volume offers a clearly written account of the legendary photographer's life and a verbal and visual portrait of the turbulent times in which he lived, illustrated with over 80 sumptuous duotone reproductions of his work.
Author Notes
Thomas Nau has been an avid photographer since his student days, when he discovered the work of Walker Evans and found it a source of inspiration. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, the illustrator and writer Janet Pederson, and their son, Graham.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-9-This is a well-written and insightful look at the professional and personal life of a 20th-century photographer. Although Evans originally wanted to be a writer, he had photos printed in small magazines and in some galleries while still in his 20s. Nau recounts his friendships with Hart Crane and James Agee, among others, which led to other assignments. Eventually, Evans went to work for Fortune magazine where he spent 20 years. The America that he documented was often that of ordinary people and disappearing architecture. Rich in details and unstaged, his works offer candid glimpses of our society, from Coney Island in the 1920s to Southern tenant farmers in the 1930s, and, later, to small towns and signs in the '70s. Excellent examples of the various periods appear throughout. The text succeeds in portraying his determination to photograph what mattered to him rather than what conventional wisdom might have dictated. Although the focus is on his professional life, mention is made of his marriages and bouts with alcoholism. This slim volume provides a thoughtful depiction of a complex man whose artistry with a camera immortalized many aspects of American society.-Carol Schene, formerly at Taunton Public Schools, MA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Budding photographers and historians alike will welcome Walker Evans: Photographer of America by Thomas Nau, which traces his life and his influences, from the places he lived (born in the Midwest, he resided briefly in New York and Paris) to the people he met (Berenice Abbott, and James Agee, with whom he collaborated for their photoessay of an Alabama tenant farm family) and the everyday subjects that dominated his photographs and captured an era. An elegant design and a generous number of photographs round out this biography. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Middle School) Walker Evans's innovative photographs of America, from the 1930s through the 1970s, portray the many faces of poverty, the drama in signs and letters, and the imagined stories of unnamed individuals going about their everyday activities. Evans's sharp, clear photographs recorded scenes without imposing an interpretation; similarly, biographer Nau presents facts crisply and lucidly and asks readers to interpret them as they will, himself drawing no overt conclusions about Evans's life or point of view. Nau doesn't just reprint Evans's photographs but encourages readers to interact with them, often posing questions about their subjects. While the overall structure is chronological, each chapter highlights a portion of Evans's work (such as his collaboration with James Agee on Let Us Now Praise Famous Men) or his development as an artist (as, for example, he vacillates between becoming a writer or becoming a photographer). Source notes and a bibliography, chronology, and index complete the book. Copryight 2007 of The Horn Book, Inc. All rights reserved. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Nau presents the life and times of photographer Walker Evans, who first found widespread recognition with his photos for James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. As a young man, Evans felt compelled to photograph indigenous American culture: people on the street, buildings in disrepair, signs and images that represented the real America, not a contrived, studio version. The photographs Nau includes are arresting and in some cases iconic, such as the portrait of Louise Burroughs from Famous Men, popularized as the cover for Karen Hesse's Out of the Dust. Unfortunately, the text doesn't match the photos for originality. Its straightforward recitation of the chronology of Evans's life fails to ignite the reader's imagination. Nevertheless, it succeeds in conveying the intellectual and social environment that nurtured Evans and his unwavering artistic vision--for that reason, it's an important document. (source notes, bibliography, chronology, index) (Nonfiction. 12+) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Although there are biographies about Depression-era photographers, such as Elizabeth Partridge's Restless Spirit: The Life and Work of Dorothea Lange0 (1998) and George Sullivan's Berenice Abbott 0 (2006), few books about Walker Evans exist for the YA audience. Nau fills this gap, amplifying information about Evans' life and philosophy with more than 50 richly reproduced photos. A college dropout, Evans embraced photography as a means of elevating the everyday stuff of life to the realm of art, whether in black-and-white images of subway riders and suffering sharecroppers or the eclectic color Polaroids that comprised his later work. Nau's brisk, expository treatment lacks the copious anecdotes about personal struggles and technical achievements that enliven the best artists' biographies. But shutterbugs, including those above and below the suggested age range, will find inspiration in Evans' uncompromising images--particularly the stark, quiet scenes from the seminal Let Us Now Praise Famous Men 0 (1941), created with James Agee--and may wish to move on to works suggested in Nau's well-rounded bibliography. A time line and source notes are appended. --Jennifer Mattson Copyright 2007 Booklist
