Getty Museum
Chrysler Building Construction, New York City
Creator
Walker EvansAmerican Photographer · 1903–1975
All works by this person →> Leaving aside the mysteries and the inequities of human talent, brains, taste, and reputations, the matter of art in photography may come down to this: it is the capture and projection of the delights of seeing; it is the defining of observation full and felt. > > -- Walker Evans Walker Evans began to photograph in the late 1920s, making snapshots during a European trip. Upon his return to New Y
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- 1930
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Culture
- American
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
Conceived by automobile magnate Walter Chrysler as a gleaming monument to the Machine Age and his contribution to it, the seventy-seven story Chrysler Building in midtown Manhattan was--for only a year after its 1930 completion--the world's tallest building. The 1920s saw the proliferation of skyscraper erections in Manhattan, and Walker Evans photographed the most celebrated of them. Only partially completed, the famous thirtieth-floor frieze of abstract automobiles on the Chrysler is visible at the image's center. Rather than focus upon its 1,046-foot verticality, Evans positioned himself looking down on the construction, as raw materials were transformed into an architectural vision. This perspective highlights the diminution of the other buildings around it, conveying the impressive scale of the structure.
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