Walker Evans
By (Author) James Mellow
Basic Books
Basic Books
11th October 2001
United States
General
Non Fiction
Individual photographers
Social and cultural history
770.92
Paperback
656
Width 156mm, Height 228mm, Spine 39mm
892g
A landmark biography of the great American photographer Walker Evans, written by one of America's most esteemed biographers. The Depression Era photographs of Walker Evans (1903-1975) remain some of the most indelible and iconic images in the American consciousness. James R. Mellow's landmark biography of Evans-the first to make use of all his diaries, letters, work logs, and contact sheets-shows that Evans was not the social propagandist that many presume, but rather a fastidious observer, recording, simply, the way things were. Walker Evans is not only one of the most finely wrought portraits of a major American artist ever, it is also a fascinating cultural history of America in the 1930s and '40s.
James R. Mellow (1926-1997) won the National Book Award in 1983 for his biography of Nathaniel Hawthorne. He was the author of a trilogy of biographies on writers of the Lost Generation, including Hemingway: A Life Without Consequences. In his forty-year career as a writer, art critic, and biographer, Mellow wrote for the New York Times, Architectural Digest, the Washington Post, Gourmet, and Arts magazine.