Walker Evans

Walker Evans, Many Are Called (Boston, 1966), p. 177

Gilles Mora and John T. Hill, Walker Evans: The Hungry Eye (New York: 1993), pp. 236-37

Judith Keller, Walker Evans: The Getty Museum Collection (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 1995), p. 182 and cat. no. 773

Doug Eklund and Jeff L. Rosenheim, Unclassified: A Walker Evans Anthology (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000), p. 182 [35-mm negative strip, frame 19]

"Those who use the New York subways are several millions. The facts about them are so commonplace that they have become almost as meaningless, as impossible to realize, as death in war. These facts—who they are, and the particular thing that happens to them in the subway—need brief reviewing, and careful meditation." 

- James Agee, introduction to Walker Evans, Many Are Called, 1966

In 1938, Walker Evans began a series of photographs made in the New York City subway system. He used a 35mm Contax camera—strapped to his chest, its lens peeking out of his coat, and operated with a wire snaked through his right sleeve—to inconspicuously photograph riders. A collection of these un-posed portraits was published in Many Are Called, Evans' 1966 book with writer James Agee. The present photograph of a blind accordion player is the final plate in the book. The most dynamic in the series, this photograph evokes in one still image all of the movement, cacophony, and sensory overload still unique to New York City's subways.

The dating of this series is generally listed as a range as Evans photographed in New York City's subways from 1938 to 1941. While the reverse of the present photograph is dated in Evans' hand '1941,' an inscription on the corresponding negative envelope in The Walker Evans Archive (WEA) at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, indicates the date is actually February 1938. The WEA holds the negative for this photograph as well as several related images of the blind accordion player.  

The photograph offered here is printed nearly full frame, cropped only slightly at the left edge. At the time of this writing, no other early print of this image is believed to have been offered at auction. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, has a print of this image, formerly in the collection of Arnold Crane.