Walker Evans was an important contributor to the development of American documentary photography in the 1930s. His precisely detailed, frontal depictions of people and artifacts of American life (crammed store interiors, display windows, billboards, etc.) have influenced each succeeding generation of photographers. Abandoning his early ambitions to write and paint, Evans turned to photography and arrived at a dry, economical, unpretentious style which attempted to lay bare before the viewer the most literal facts. He was critical from the start of what he termed the "artsicraftsiness" of art photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz and the "commercialism" of those such as Edward Steichen. Although primarily a photographer of environments rather than people, s social concerns brought him face to face with the victims of the Depression. He tried to capture their stoicism in unflinchingly direct portraits. He believed with Baudelaire that the artist Walker Evans: New Orleans, 1935
Walker Evans: New Orleans, 1935