Walker Evans - Photographs New York Wednesday, October 11, 2023 | 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.

    • Provenance

      Collection of Arnold Crane, Chicago
      Lee Gallery, Winchester, MA, 1999

    • Literature

      Evans, Many Are Called, pl. 54
      Hill and Thompson, eds., Walker Evans at Work, p. 154
      Keller, Walker Evans: The Getty Museum Collection, fig. 702, p. 214 (for stamp)

Photographs from a Prominent New York Collection

27

Subway Portrait, January 26

1941
Gelatin silver print.
6 1/2 x 8 1/2 in. (16.5 x 21.6 cm)
'1681 York Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10028' credit stamp (Keller stamp I) and signed and annotated by Arnold Crane in pencil on the reverse of the mount.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$15,000 - 25,000 

Sold for $16,510

Contact Specialist

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

 

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

Photographs

New York Auction 11 October 2023