Walker Evans

flush-mounted, signed and dated by the photographer and signed by Arnold Crane in pencil and with a 'Collection Arnold H. Crane, Chicago, U. S. A.' stamp on the reverse, matted, framed, 1930

Acquired from the photographer by Arnold Crane, 1960s

Private Collection, Chicago

Carol Ehlers Photographs, Inc., through Ehlers Caudill Gallery, Inc., Chicago, 1987

Acquired by the Quillan Company from the above, 1989

Jill Quasha, The Quillan Collection of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Photographs (New York, 1991), pl. 59 (this print)

Other prints of this image:

Jeff L. Rosenheim, Maria Morris Hambourg, Douglas Eklund, and Mia Fineman, Walker Evans (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 18

Maria Morris Hambourg, Pierre Apraxine, et al., The Waking Dream: Photography's First Century: Selections from the Gilman Paper Company Collection (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1991, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 178

Documentary & Anti-Graphic: Photographs by Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans & Alvarez Bravo (Paris, Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, 2004, in conjunction with the exhibition), p. 169

Keller 120

John T. Hill, Walker Evans at Work (New York, 1982), p. 46

Gilles Mora and John T. Hill, Walker Evans: The Hungry Eye (New York, 1993), p. 53

Walker Evans: First and Last (New York, 1978), p. 8

This print is on paper with a semi-glossy surface and a slight warm tonality. It is flush-mounted to stiff paper. It is essentially in excellent condition. When examined closely in high raking light, a very faint area of scuffing is visible to the left of the larger suspended hand. There is a small chip in the upper portion of the left edge, as well as minor wear and chipping on the corners. None of these issues is obtrusive, and they do not impact upon the print's overall fine appearance.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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With its depiction of arm- and heart-shaped figures set against the backdrop of New York tenements, this photograph juxtaposes the bizarre with the familiar.  The image, made early in Walker Evans's career as a photographer, was taken on Roosevelt Street in lower Manhattan and shows, in addition to votive candles, molded wax voti di cera traditionally given in offering to Saint Rocco.  A chapel devoted to the saint was located within the Church of Saint Joachim on Roosevelt Street, one of many areas of the city explored by Evans in the late 1920s and early 1930s.  

Evans came to New York City in 1927 after spending a year in Paris, where he had encountered the work of both the Surrealists and Eugène Atget.  In New York, he earned a living through various jobs while investigating his adopted city with his camera, and refining his photographic vision and technique.  While Evans would later work almost exclusively with a large-format camera, his early work in New York City was done with handheld cameras which allowed him greater mobility when photographing on the city's streets.   

On the day that Evans made the photograph offered here, he carried two different handheld cameras, and used both to photograph the store display.  One was a 35mm Leica, with which he made 4 exposures, and the other a medium-format 2 ½ by 4 ¼-inch roll-film camera, which he used to make the photograph offered here, as well as one other exposure. 

With its exotic, almost surreal subject matter, divorced from any explanatory context, this photograph offers an unexpected vision of Depression-era New York.  The image is an early example of Evans's interests in street life, signs, and quirky Americana that would continue to be present in his work into the final years of his long photographic career.