Getty Museum
6th Avenue
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
- 1929
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Culture
- American
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
- Object ID
- 39b62bff-07e8-40f8-93b1-736afdb48d83
This photograph was first published in 1930 in a portfolio of Walker Evans's work, "New York City," in *Hound and Horn*, Lincoln Kirstein's literary journal at Harvard University. As the first plate, titled simply *Sixth Avenue*, it was an anonymous image of a pedestrian caught by chance in the midst of city traffic. Evans favored this sort of street portrait throughout his career. He brazenly closed in on this stranger, whose weary face is framed in an abundant fur collar. Evans's goal was to record a glimpse of random faces against the chaos of crowds, automobiles, and mass transit. In this view, the entrance to the elevated train dominates the right edge of the picture.
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