Walker Evans - Photographs from the Martin Z. Margulies Foundation Part II New York Wednesday, October 9, 2024 | Phillips
  • 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.  

    • Condition Report

    • Description

      View our Conditions of Sale.

    • Provenance

      Laurence Miller Gallery, New York, 2000

    • Exhibited

      La Morada Del Hombre: Colección Martin Z. Margulies / The Dwelling Life of Man: Collection of Martin Z. Margulies, Fundación Barrié de la Maza, Barcelona, 3 June – 25 September 2011; Fundación Foto Colectania, Barcelona, 23 February – 16 June 2012

    • Literature

      Keller, Walker Evans: The Getty Museum Collection, pl. 794
      Fundación Pedro Barrié de la Maza and Fundación Foto Colectania, La Morada Del Hombre: Colección Martin Z. Margulies, p. 111

89

Subway Portrait (two women)

1938-1941
Gelatin silver print.
4 1/4 x 6 5/8 in. (10.8 x 16.8 cm)
Lunn Gallery stamp numbered 'VI' and '183' in an unidentified hand in pencil on the reverse of the flush-mount.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$10,000 - 15,000 

Place Advance Bid
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 Part II

New York Auction 9 October 2024