Walker Evans - Photographs from the Martin Z. Margulies Foundation New York Thursday, April 4, 2024 | Phillips

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  • In winter of 1938 Walker Evans began a series of photographs made in the New York City subways. Working with a small 35-millimeter Contax camera which could be easily concealed, and frequently in the company of fellow photographer Helen Levitt, Evans sought to push past the conventions of traditional portrait photography to capture what he called ‘true portraiture.’ This involved days spent on the trains, watching for passengers who interested him in some way, and surreptitiously capturing their images. For Evans, it was crucial that his subjects were unaware they were being photographed in order to capture them unguarded, without artifice or performance. The resulting images are remarkable for their intimacy and immediacy. 

     

    While Evans’s work on the subways was extensive, it was little-known until 1966 when a selection of 80 were published in the monograph Many are Called. In that same year, an exhibition of 41 images from the series were exhibited in Walker Evans’ Subway, 1938-1941, at The Museum of Modern Art.  

    • Exhibited

      Private Dramas, Public Dreams: The Street Photographs of Helen Levitt & Friends, Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville, 10 December 2013 – 8 June 2014

    • Literature

      Keller, Walker Evans: The Getty Museum Collection, p. xvi (for stamp)

96

Subway Portrait (Lenox Avenue)

1939
Gelatin silver print, printed 1960s.
6 7/8 x 10 in. (17.5 x 25.4 cm)
Credit stamp (Keller stamp B) on the verso.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$7,000 - 9,000 

Sold for $9,525

Contact Specialist

Caroline Deck
Senior Specialist, Photographs
cdeck@phillips.com

Vanessa Hallett
Worldwide Head of Photographs and Chairwoman, Americas
vhallett@phillips.com

Photographs from the Martin Z. Margulies Foundation

New York Auction 4 April 2024