Migrant Mother

(http://walkerevans.florencegriswoldmuseum.org/gallery/gallery.php5?id=0)  

   

      I am deeply moved by much of Walker Evans' work and especially this photo.  I really like his Depression work.  What I love about his photos during the depression is the stories and hardships that he managed to show with a snap.  He found a way to show individuals' stories at the same time as showing what the real America was at that time.  He showed suffering in his photos, but he also showed hope.  I think he was the best photographer in American History.  He documented America during the depression and got this documentation printed and showed to the public and the leaders as much as any journalist could have.  

(Walker Evans-Metropolitan Museum of Art)

     Evans was born in St. Louis in 1903 and he died in New Haven, Connecticut in 1975.  He grew up in Kenilworth, Illinois.  He was a bad student and dropped out of Williams College. He had a few unsuccessful careers before he went into photography. Through his work, he became famous and was a very acknowledged photographer.  He became a professor at Yale University for photography and an Associate Editor at Fortune Magazine.

(http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAPevansW.htm)

     

     The photo above was taken in 1935 by Evans.  It was of an auto junk yard in Pennsylvania.  The image looks like just part of the junk yard, perhaps to show the vastness of the junk yard.  There are also a few trees in the background.  This shows the rural element of the photo.  It is clearly a cloudy and possibly misty day that the photo was taken.  Much of the photo is just of open field.  

     This photo is moving to me for many reasons.  First, it is a clear and brilliant symbol of the economic hardships that my family and all of the families of the United States and much of the world went through in the 1930s.  It also connects back to today, with lots and lots of bankrupted businesses and foreclosed houses, our country is filled with more and more "junkyards" than for a long time, maybe even since the Depression.  Even though this photo has no people in it, it still tells the story and suffrage of people.  I think, however, that this photo displays hope.  The field and trees in the background show future and somewhere to go.  This is a meaningful, dark, photo, but the life in the background inspires me as well.  

     After looking through albums upon albums and reading a book of Walker Evans' work, it made me want to travel around the country like he did.  He showed the rough times in America.  However, his photos also showed patriotism, the vastness and the beauty of America.  

Sources Cited

Department of Photographs. "Walker Evans (1903–1975)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/evan/hd_evan.htm (October 2004)

"Walker Evans." 2012. Biography.com 02 Feb 2012, 09:59 http://www.biography.com/people/walker-evans-9289854

"Walker Evans : Biography." Spartacus Educational. Web. 02 Feb. 2012. <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAPevansW.htm>.