Evans was one of the first photographers to document the roadside as a site for the radical transformation of American culture. For Evans, the billboard, with its movie-screen scope and alluring, surreal juxtapositions, was the quintessential expression of the emerging media culture. In his deceptively straightforward picture, the artist creates a new ironic reading for the billboard. This hand-painted version of the American dream home, with its bizarre disjunctions in scale, skewed perspective, and mannequin-like figures, seems to have communicated in spite of itself how strange and unreal the promise of luxury and comfort must have seemed to the rural poor victimized by the Depression.
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Inscription: Inscribed in pencil on print, subsequently erased, verso C: "Ra 8091A"
Photo Technique, (late 1940s); Mrs. Broward, (an editor's daughter); Bill Tomlonson, (a collector); Pace/MacGill
This photograph was made while Evans was under Federal contract to the Resettlement (later the Farm Security) Administration. The verso inscription is the Resettlement Administration (RA) file number assigned to this 8x10" negative. The inscription indicates that the print is an early RA/FSA print not made by Evans. The negative dates from March [?] 1936 before Evans' collaboration with James Agee in Alabama on what would later become Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Photo Technique merged with American Photography magazine in the late 1940s.
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. "Walker Evans - Dan Graham," August 29, 1992–October 11, 1992.
Musée Cantini. "Walker Evans - Dan Graham," November 6, 1992–January 10, 1993.
Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte. "Walker Evans - Dan Graham," January 31, 1993–March 21, 1993.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Johnson Gallery, Selections from the Collection 10," August 28–November 13, 1995.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Walker Evans," February 1–May 14, 2000.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. "Walker Evans," June 2–September 12, 2000.
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "Walker Evans," December 17, 2000–March 4, 2001.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Johnson Gallery, Selections from the Collection 38," June 29–September 26, 2004.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Johnson Gallery, Selections from the Collection 47," September 20, 2007–January 6, 2008.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Framing a Century: Master Photographers, 1840–1940," June 3–September 1, 2008.
Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou. "Walker Evans," April 26, 2017–August 14, 2017.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. "Walker Evans," October 15, 2017–February 4, 2018.
Walker Evans (American, St. Louis, Missouri 1903–1975 New Haven, Connecticut)
May 17, 1963
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