A Child's Grave, Hale County, Alabama

Walker EvansWW-1936-103184

1936·Gelatin silver print·Image/paper: 8.4 × 23.1 cm (3 5/16 × 9 1/8 in.)

<p>Walker Evans perfected a dispassionate documentary approach to photography that was concise yet often poetic. Among his best known pictures are those he made on a 1936 trip to Hale County, Alabama, with writer James Agee, to record the lives of three impoverished tenant farmer families during the Depression. Evans’s photographs and Agee’s lengthy text were eventually published as the 1941 book <em>Let Us Now Praise Famous Men</em>. Agee devoted a short chapter to a local graveyard, noting the improvised nature of markers on the poorest of the burial sites, including pine boards, glasses, and old crockery. Evans photographed several such graves (a different image than this was included in the book); in this picture, he dramatically cropped the print from a full negative in order to echo the horizontal shape of the grave itself, underscoring with little flourish the poignant nature of his subject.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1936
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: Image/paper: 8.4 × 23.1 cm (3 5/16 × 9 1/8 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Walker Evans

Artist

Walker Evans

Photography

Walker Evans (1903-1975) was an American photographer and photojournalist, best known for his work documenting the effects of the Great Depression through his precise, candid portrayals of everyday life. His most famous project, conducted for the Farm Security Administration (FSA), captured the faces and living conditions of struggling farmers and their families, providing an indelible record of the era. Evans's style, characterized by its clarity, detail, and lack of embellishment, influenced generations of photographers and artists. His work goes beyond mere documentation to reveal the beauty in the ordinary, making him a pivotal figure in the history of photography. Evans's photographs have been exhibited globally and remain influential in both art and social documentary contexts.

New Haven, CT, USA

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