An exhibition of photographs by the Missouri-born photographer, Walker Evans at Axen Farm, Symondsbury near Bridport [DT6 6HL] from Saturday 7th August 'til 5th September.
In the years of the Great American Depression of 1935-36, Walker Evans (1903-1975), embarked on a photographic project that would produce some of the most iconic images in the history of photography.Evans was employed as an ‘Information Specialist’ in President Franklin D Roosevelt’s Resettlement (later Farm Security) Administration. He was commissioned alongside other eminent photographers of the time (Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein) to record the work of the FSA’s rehabilitation programme, as well as to document the daily lives of farmers and flood victims.
He travelled to Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina photographing churches, graveyards, busy streets, shops, cafes, signs and billboards as well as making more intimate portraits of family life. He also recorded interiors and exteriors of sharecroppers’ homes, group portraits and the famous close-up portraits of the Burroughs family. These disquieting, provocative images are seen by many as the culmination of Evans’ photographic career, capturing the expressions of the weak and vulnerable and showing the fragility of their existence. His work bears witness to the realities faced by Depression-era communities in the Deep South.
