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Walker Evans

Walker Evans

  • Birth Year
    1903
  • Death Year
    1975
  • Nationality
    American

Biography

Walker Evans (1903–1975) was an American photographer whose documentary work profoundly shaped the development of twentieth‑century photography. Born in St. Louis and later active across the United States, Evans became widely known for his work with the Farm Security Administration (1935–1937), where he created unvarnished images capturing the realities of rural American life during the Great Depression. His collaboration with writer James Agee resulted in the landmark 1941 book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Evans’s precise, direct style established a new standard for documentary clarity and influenced generations of artists, from Robert Frank to Diane Arbus. Over his long career he worked for Time and Fortune, exhibited at leading museums including MoMA, and later taught at Yale University.