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Walker Evans (1903–1975) is undisputedly one of the most influential American photographers ever. His work altered the consciousness of his country, and many of his images are fixed in collective American memory. His uncompromising documentation of poverty during the Great Depression has become an iconic part of the history of photography, yet his equally innovative works produced in the ensuing decades have met with less acclaim. His works are at once clear and ambiguous, and thus they are able to convey the inextricable contradictions of modern life, the search for truth and the longing for poetry.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
Graduates from Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts
Attends Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts
Works in the Public Library, New York
Attends the Sorbonne University in Paris, France. Studies the writings of Flaubert and Baudelaire.
Takes snapshots with roll film camera. Then returns to New York.
Starts to photograph seriously with roll film camera and borrowed Leica.
Meets Lincoln Kirstein.
Photographs appear in Hound and Horn, Architectural Review, and Creative Art.
Starts to work with large-format camera.
Begins to document early Victorian houses in New England and New York.
Travels to Tahiti and afterwards to Cuba.
Goes to Florida. First story for Fortune magazine: “The Communist Party”.
Photographs an exhibition of African art at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Travels to New Orleans. Meets Jane Smith Ninas.
Staff Photographer, under Roy Stryker, for the Farm Security Administration (FSA).
Takes leave of absence from the FSA to work on a Fortune magazine project with James Agee.
Later published as ‘Let us Now Praise Famous Men’ (1941).
Begins to photograph subway riders and people in the streets with a Leica.
Marries Jane Smith Ninas.
Staff writer for the Time magazine.
Associate editor and photographer for Fortune magazine.
‘Let us Now Praise Famous Men’ reissued with 62 photographs.
Professor of Graphic Arts, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
Retires from professional photography.
Publication of ‘Many are Called’ and ‘Message from the Interior’.
Grant from Mark Rothko Foundation. Photographs with Polaroid sx-70 camera.
Professor emeritus, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
Died in New Haven, Connecticut.
Mark Rothko Foundation Grant, New York
Artist in Residence, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
D. Litt, Williams College; Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Science
Carnegie Corporation Award, New York
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Walker Evans American Photographs, The Mattatuck Museum Arts & History Center, Waterbury, Connecticut, USA
Biennial for Contemporary Photography: Walker Evans Revisited, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany
Walker Evans, SFMOMA, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA,USA
Walker Evans, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
Walker Evans, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
Walker Evans. Depth of Field, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia
Walker Evans. Anonymous, Fondation A Stichting, Brussels, Belgium
Walker Evans. Tiefenschärfe, Josef Albers Museum Quadrat, Bottrop, Germany
Walker Evans. A Life’s Work, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany
Walker Evans. American Photographs, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Walker Evans. Decade by Decade, Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne, Germany
Walker Evans, Cantor Arts Center, Stanford, California
The Exacting Eye of Walker Evans, Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut
Walker Evans, The Museum of Photography, Seoul, South Korea
Walker Evans, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland
Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
Walker Evans. Beyond Documentary, Stephen Cohen Gallery, Los Angeles, California
Walker Evans, Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, France
Walker Evans. England 1973, Gardner Arts Centre, Brighton, UK
Walker Evans. American Classics, Museum für Photographie, Braunschweig, Germany
Walker Evans. New Translations and Vintage Prints, Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne, Germany
Walker Evans. 1903-1975, The Photographers’ Gallery, London, UK
Walker Evans. Polaroids, Die Photographische Sammlung / SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne, Germany
Laurence Miller Gallery, New York
Gallery 292, New York
Gallery 292, New York
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Photofest, Houston, Texas
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
IVAM Centre Julio Gonzales, Valencia, Spain
Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York
Robert Schoelkopf Gallery, New York
Wellesley College Museum, Wellesley, Massachusetts
Palace of the Legion of Honor, Achenbach Foundation, San Francisco, California
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
Hopkins Centre, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
The Century Association, New York
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Robert Schoelkopf Gallery, New York
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Connecticut Modern: Art, Design, and the Avant-Garde, 1930–1960, Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut, USA
The Bitter Years: Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans Photographs from the Martin Z. Margulies Collection, Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South California, USA
Depth of Field, Pensacola Museum of Art, Florida, USA
Who Are They? Who Am I? Portraits of Artists and Artist Self-Portraits,Bates College, Museum of Art, Maine, USA
The Language Of The Streets, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio, USA
Outer Harmonies, Rockford Art Museum, Riverfront Museum Park, Rockford, Illinois, USA
Making Your Mark: Prints and Drawings from the Hechinger Collection, The Haggin Museum, Stockton, CA, USA
Photography’s Last Century: The Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee Collection, Telfair Museum, Jepson Center, Savannah, Georgia, USA
Walker Evans: Revisited, Helmond Museum, Helmond, Netherlands
MOMAT Collection, The International Museum of Art, Tokyo, Chiyoda-Ku, Tokyo, Japan
TOP Collection: The Illumination of Life by Death, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Meguro-Ku,Tokyo, Japan
Sculpting Reality. Per Amor a l’Art Collection, PhotoEspaña 2022, Círculo de Bellas Artes & Casa de América, Madrid, Spain
Cruel Radiance: Photography, 1940s–1960s, The MET, New York, USA
American Photography, Albertina, Vienna, Austria
Photography’s Last Century: The Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Moment in Time: A Legacy of Photographs from the Bank of America Collection, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, Ireland
Shape of Light: Defining Photographs from the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Poughkeepsie, New York
Howard Greenberg Gallery: From Archive to History, Kunst- und Kulturzentrum der StädteRegion Aachen e. V., Monschau, Germany
We love Photography! 20 Years of Art Collection Deutsche Börse, Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, Frankfurt/Main, Germany
Doing the Document. Photographs from Diane Arbus to Piet Zwart. The Bartenbach Donation, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
The Beauty of Lines. Masterpieces from the Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Falla collection, Musée de l’Elysée Lausanne, Switzerland
Double Elephant 1973-74: Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Walker Evans, Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand, Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne, Germany
Masterpieces from the Howard Greenberg Collection, Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Constructing Worlds – Photography and Architecture in the Modern Age, Barbican Art Gallery, London, UK
Artificial Light: Flash Photography in the 20th Century, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
A Democracy of Images, Smithsonian American Art, Washington, D.C.
Howard Greenberg Collection, Fondation Cartier-Bresson, Paris, France (travelling exhibition)
Letzte Bilder. Von Manet bis Kippenberger. Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt/Main, Germany
Der Mensch und seine Objekte, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany
Gaze – The Changing Face of Portrait Photography, Istanbul Modern, Istanbul, Turkey
Landschaft als Weltsicht, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Germany
New York Photography 1890-1950 Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg, Germany
Der Mensch und seine Objekte, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany
La Triennale: Intense Proximity, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France
I Spy: Photography and the Theater of the Street, 1938 – 2010, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Picturing The Artist, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington
EXPOSED. Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera since 1870, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota (travelling exhibition)
ATLAS. How to Carry the World on One´s Back?, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany
Seeing Beauty, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, California
Polaroid in Peril!, Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland
Surface Tension: Contemporary Photographs from the Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
BIG CITY, Wien Museum, Wien, Austria
Street & Studio, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany
Henri Cartier-Bresson / Walker Evans – Photographier l’Amérique (1929-1947), Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, France
VIP: Very Important Photographs 1840s-1940s, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia
Short Stories, National Museum of Photography, Copenhagen, Denmark
Documentary and anti-graphic Photographs, Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, France
Cruel and Tender. Fotografie und das Wirkliche, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
Cruel and Tender. Fotografie und das Wirkliche, Tate Modern, London, UK
Walker Evans and Company: Works from the MoMa, Museum of Modern Art, New York
The American Tradition and Walker Evans: Photographs from the Getty Collection, The Paul J. Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California
Walker Evans and Robert Frank: An Essay on Influence, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
Photography Rediscovered: American Photographs 1900-1930, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
The Presence of Walker Evans, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts
Photographs from the Julien Levy Collection, Starting with Atget, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
Photography Unlimited, The Fogg Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Eleven American Photographers, Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York
The Bitter Years 1935-41, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Diogenes with a Camera III, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Art in Our Time, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Photography 1839-1937, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Documentary and Anti-Graphic: Photographs by Cartier-Bresson, Evans, and Alvarez Bravo, Julien Levy Gallery, New York
Walker Evans and George Platt Lynes, Julien Levy Gallery, New York
Modern Photography at Home and Abroad, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York
International Photographers, Brooklyn Museum, New York
Photography by Three Americans, John Becker Gallery, New York
International Photography, Harvard Society for Contemporary Art, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Thomas Zander (Ed.): Walker Evans. Labor Anonymous, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne, Germany
Thomas Zander (Ed.): Double Elephant, Steidl Publishers, Göttingen, Germany
The Search for a Democratic Aesthetics: Robert Rauschenberg, Walker Evans, William Carlos Williams / Alexander Leicht, In: American Studies, Heidelberg, Germany
Walker Evans. Decade by Decade, exh. cat., Hatje Cantz Verlag, Berlin/Ostfildern/Stuttgart, Germany
Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard, exh. cat., Steidl Publishers, Göttingen, Germany
Leicht, Michael: Wie Katie Tingle sich weigerte, ordentlich zu posieren und Walker Evans darüber nicht grollte, Eine kritische Bildbetrachtung sozialdokumentarischer Fotografie, Transcript, Bielefeld, Germany
Rosenheim, Jeff L. : Walker Evans – Polaroids, Scalo Verlag, Zurich, Switzerland
Keller, Judith: Walker Evans, The Getty Museum Collection, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California
Mora, Gilles and John T. Hill, Walker Evans: The Hungry Eye, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York
Brix, Michael / Birgit Mayer (Ed.), Walker Evans America. Essay by Michael Brix, Rizzoli, New York
Walker Evans. Photo Poche #45. Introduction par Gilles Mora, Centre National de la Photographie, Paris, France
Mora, Gilles, Walker Evans: Havana 1933. Sequence by John T. Hill, Thames and Hudson, London, UK
Mora, Gilles, Walker Evans, Belfond/Paris Audiovisuel, Paris, France
Walker Evans at Work: 745 Photographs Together with Documents Selected From Letters, Memoranda, Interviews, Notes. With an essay by Jerry L. Thompson, Harper and Row, New York
Walker Evans, Introduction by Llloyd Fonvielle, Millerton, Aperture, New York
A Vision SHared: A Classic Portrait of America and Ist People, 1935-1943. Foreword by Bernarda Shahn; afterword by Paul S. Taylor, St. Martin’s Press, New York
Walker Evans, Photographs for the Farm Security Administration, 1935-1938. A Catalog of Prints Available from the Farm Security Administration, Collection in the Library of Congress, Introduction by Jerald C. Maddox, Da Capo Press, New York
Walker Evans, Introduction by John Szarkowski , Museum of Modern Art, New York
Evans, Walker, Message from the Interior. Afterwords by John Szarkowski, Eakins Press, New York
Evans, Walker, Many Are Called. With an introduction by James Agee, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, Massachusetts
Radlin, Paul and James Johnson Sweeney. African Folktales and Sculpture, Pantheon Books, New York
Agee, James and Walker Evans. Let us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, Massachusetts
Evans, Walker. American Photographs. With an essay by Lincoln Kirstein, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Fogg Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
Museum of Modern Art, New York
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Peabody Essex Museum, Massachusetts
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Zander Galerie
Schönhauser Straße 8
50968 Cologne
Germany
Zander Galerie
6 Rue Jacob
75006 Paris
France
