Walker Evans - Photographs New York Wednesday, October 12, 2022 | Phillips

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  • This photograph offered here is a close variant of the image Evans reproduced in his 1938 book, American Photographs, and was made during the same photographic session. In the present photograph, Evans places the structure front and center, letting it dominate the frame, creating a stage-set like setting for its three figures. The published version, made from a different image, shows more of the surrounding countryside. Significantly, it was this print selected for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Walker Evans retrospective in 2000.


    This photograph comes originally from the collection of Alfred H. Barr, Jr., the first director of The Museum of Modern Art. Barr was introduced to Evans and his work by Lincoln Kirstein, who would later write the introduction to American Photographs. This initiated a long relationship between Evans and MoMA, with Evans working for a time as a staff photographer and, later, becoming one of the photographic artists most associated with the museum.

    • Provenance

      Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Barr, Jr., 1967
      Collection of The Museum of Modern Art
      Sotheby's, New York, Photographs from the Museum of Modern Art, 22 October 2002, lot 66
      Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

    • Exhibited

      Walker Evans, Museum of Modern Art, New York, June- September 2000; traveling to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2000-2001

    • Literature

      American Photographs, Part Two, pl. 14 (variant)
      Rosenheim, Walker Evans, pl. 100 (this print)
      Mora and Hill, Walker Evans, The Hungry Eye, p. 187
      Photographs for the F.S.A. 209

119

Country Store and Gas Station, Alabama

1936
Gelatin silver print.
6 7/8 x 9 1/2 in. (17.5 x 24.1 cm)
Titled, dated, and annotations in an unidentified hand in pencil and MoMA Permanent Collection stamp on the verso.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$60,000 - 80,000 

Sold for $69,300

Contact Specialist

Sarah Krueger
Head of Department, Photographs, New York
skrueger@phillips.com


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

Photographs

New York Auction 12 October 2022