Walker Evans. by James R. Mellow

[andrew_somerset1]

Mellow, James R. Walker Evans. New York: Basic Books, 1999. 653 pp.

ISBN 0-465-09077-X.

 

In this biography of Walker Evans, James Mellow set out to show how

Evans's interest in literature and flirtations with various

Modernist writers informed his photographic style. Unfortunately,

Mellow died before completing the manuscript and therefore the book

does not provide any real details of Evans's later career, from 1957

on. However, it does provide great insight into his early career,

leading up to his best known work.

 

Evans, who originally set out to become a writer, followed in the

footsteps of Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and

others in emigrating to Paris where he was exposed to French

literature. Mellow argues that writers such as André Gide, an Evans

favourite who used detailed descriptions of rooms, accessories and

clothing as character revelation, were the literary counterpart of

Evans's architectural interiors. A parallel is also drawn to

Hemingway's detached style, in which adjectives are unnecessary

because the facts speak for themselves.

 

The Evans who emerges is not a campaigner for social causes, as one

might assume from his involvement with the FSA, but an apolitical

artist whose sole commitment was to portray the world as it was.

This commitment to realism marked a break from the "high art"

movement championed by Stieglitz (and Evans's antagonist, Ansel

Adams) and, in Mellow's view, profoundly influenced our ideas of

what a photograph is.

 

At 653 pages (and bearing in mind that the biography is

uncompleted), this book is a brick. At times, it seems it could bear

heavier editing, as the thrust of the narrative becomes lost in

inconsequential detail. And of course, it peters out in 1957 without

reaching a conclusion.

 

The strength of this book lies in its earlier chapters, which place

Evans in the context of his time and compare him not only to

photographic influences such as Atget and Berenice Abbott, but also

to wider movements in the world of art and in particular to the

writers who influenced his thinking.

[john meehan]

Andrew

 

I agree with your view that the book could benefit from more vigorous editing. I also felt at times that Mellow was at pains to mirror the attention to mundane details prevalent in Evan's work (interiors particularly) to the detriment of a fuller treatment of his aestethic approach.

 

I guess this is what we lost with Mellow's death. The significant amount of teaching Evan's did later in life must have left some imprint in terms of his later reflections on his body of work.