Walker Evans (1903–1975) is best known as one of the leading documentary photographers of the Depression Era, and for his photographs of Alabama sharecroppers in James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. His FSA photographs have become icons in the American consciousness, and are perhaps the most influential body of photographic work in this century.But Evans was not the propagandist for social causes he was presumed to be; he was, instead, a fastidious observer, recording, simply, the way things were. His instinctive aversion to “artiness” contrasted him sharply from his senior Alfred Stieglitz, and his immediate contemporary, Ansel Adams. Evans' eye took him toward the dusty particulars, the backroads of American life, its rundown mill towns, roadside stands, torn movie posters and advertisements for departed minstrel shows. He developed a peculiarly American vernacular, his particular trademark that makes an Evans photograph almost instantly recognizable.With unrestricted access to all of Evans' diaries, letters, work logs and contact sheets, James R. Mellow has produced one of the most finely wrought portraits of a major American artist ever. Also, it is a deeply informed cultural history of the 1930s and '40s and a lively account of friendships and influences with the likes of Lincoln Kirstein and James Agee.

About the Author

James R. Mellow's 1983 biography, Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Times, won the National Book Award. He is also the author of a trilogy of biographies of the Lost Generation: Charmed Circle: Gertrude Stein & Company; Invented Lives: F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald; and Hemingway: A Life Without Consequences. He has written extensively for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Architectural Digest, and Gourmet and Arts magazines. James Mellow died in 1998.

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