Customer Reviews

Walker Evans: Florida

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"Walker Evans: Florida," following on the heels of last year's "Walker Evans: Signs," is the second volume in what I hope will become a series from the J.Paul Getty Museum. Revealing as well as entertaining, it presents the Getty's holdings of Florida photographs that Evans made on assignment in 1941 for "The Mangrove Coast," with text by Karl Bickel, published the following year. This is a lesser-known body of Evans's work, somewhat overshadowed by his monumental document of the Great Depression collected in the files of the Library of Congress, and in the pages of innumerable volumes since his original "American Photographs" and "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men." The value of this small volume is that Evans's excellant Florida work is now back in print; and if his whole career is ever to be properly evaluated, then all of its facets must be fully examined. My only criticism is with the book's design and layout. As with "Walker Evans: Signs," the photographs are often guttered and bled off the edge of the page, and the type is laid out in such an artsy way that it is often confusing. Evans would not have approved. The enjoyable introductory essay by Robert Plunket adeptly balances information about Evans and West Florida, with personal experiences of the author, a long time Sarasota resident. This is a book that all serious students of Evans will want to have.