WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.919 Welcome to the Deep Dive. Our mission here is, 00:00:03.020 --> 00:00:05.200 well, it's pretty simple. We take a monumental 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:07.960 figure, we stack up all the sources we can find, 00:00:08.039 --> 00:00:10.279 and we try to pull out the most essential insights 00:00:10.279 --> 00:00:12.839 and, you know, the most surprising stories. And 00:00:12.839 --> 00:00:15.919 today, the figure is Walker Evans. We're talking 00:00:15.919 --> 00:00:21.399 1903 to 1975. An artist whose work really, it 00:00:21.399 --> 00:00:24.179 didn't just document American history. No, it 00:00:24.179 --> 00:00:26.100 almost feels like it wrote the visual history 00:00:26.100 --> 00:00:28.780 of 20th century America. That's a great way to 00:00:28.780 --> 00:00:31.399 put it. I mean, it's hard to overstate his importance. 00:00:31.940 --> 00:00:34.479 Our sources, and we're talking about major texts 00:00:34.479 --> 00:00:37.119 from places like the Museum of Modern Art, they 00:00:37.119 --> 00:00:39.359 position him as one of the most influential artists 00:00:39.359 --> 00:00:42.359 of the 20th century. That's a huge claim. It 00:00:42.359 --> 00:00:44.600 is. It's a massive institutional endorsement, 00:00:44.600 --> 00:00:46.000 and it's something we're going to really dig 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:48.200 into by looking at his whole career. Right, because 00:00:48.200 --> 00:00:50.350 our sources cut her everything. We've got his 00:00:50.350 --> 00:00:53.490 affluent childhood, his early dreams of being 00:00:53.490 --> 00:00:55.549 a writer. All the way through to his just incredible 00:00:55.549 --> 00:00:58.590 work during the Great Depression, his book collaborations, 00:00:58.609 --> 00:01:00.969 which were, you know, groundbreaking, but also 00:01:00.969 --> 00:01:04.349 really controversial. And then his later life 00:01:04.349 --> 00:01:07.450 as a big time magazine editor and even a professor 00:01:07.450 --> 00:01:11.349 at Yale. We really have the full complex arc. 00:01:11.510 --> 00:01:13.989 And we should start with his own mission. Right 00:01:13.989 --> 00:01:16.370 at the heart of this whole thing is Evans' own 00:01:16.370 --> 00:01:19.329 goal as a photographer. He said his work had 00:01:19.329 --> 00:01:23.049 to be literate, authoritative, transcendent. 00:01:23.069 --> 00:01:25.870 Okay, that's a fascinating trio of words, literate. 00:01:25.969 --> 00:01:28.090 When a photographer says he wants his pictures 00:01:28.090 --> 00:01:30.890 to be literate, what does that even mean? He's 00:01:30.890 --> 00:01:33.489 not just taking snapshots. No, not at all. For 00:01:33.489 --> 00:01:36.250 Evans, literate meant bringing a kind of intellectual 00:01:36.250 --> 00:01:39.159 rigor. to the photo, the kind of structure and 00:01:39.159 --> 00:01:41.480 precision you'd find in literature. He wanted 00:01:41.480 --> 00:01:43.920 you to read the images, not just glance at them. 00:01:43.980 --> 00:01:46.180 Okay, and authoritative. That meant they had 00:01:46.180 --> 00:01:48.760 to feel like undeniable truth, capturing the 00:01:48.760 --> 00:01:50.780 subject without any manipulation, without any 00:01:50.780 --> 00:01:53.349 sentimentality, just... The facts of the thing. 00:01:53.469 --> 00:01:55.969 And transcendent. That's the art part, elevating 00:01:55.969 --> 00:01:58.450 the everyday, the common, even the tragic, into 00:01:58.450 --> 00:02:01.129 something permanent, something that lasts. And 00:02:01.129 --> 00:02:02.989 that mission really comes into focus during his 00:02:02.989 --> 00:02:05.670 most famous period, right? Working for the government, 00:02:05.750 --> 00:02:07.750 for the Resettlement Administration. Which then 00:02:07.750 --> 00:02:09.889 became the Farm Security Administration, or the 00:02:09.889 --> 00:02:13.669 FSA, yeah. That work, plus his huge collaboration 00:02:13.669 --> 00:02:16.669 on the book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, that's 00:02:16.669 --> 00:02:18.710 what cemented his legacy. And this is why this 00:02:18.710 --> 00:02:21.439 deep dive matters so much today, I think. Evans 00:02:21.439 --> 00:02:23.819 basically created the template for serious documentary 00:02:23.819 --> 00:02:26.639 photography. But in doing that, he also created 00:02:26.639 --> 00:02:29.439 a visual language for poverty. That we still 00:02:29.439 --> 00:02:31.659 use. And that we still critique. Absolutely. 00:02:32.020 --> 00:02:34.520 Understanding how he navigated that tension between 00:02:34.520 --> 00:02:38.060 art, documentation, politics and the real lives 00:02:38.060 --> 00:02:41.219 of the subjects. It's just crucial for understanding 00:02:41.219 --> 00:02:43.780 our own visual world now. The ethical questions 00:02:43.780 --> 00:02:46.039 he raised are still with us every single day. 00:02:46.379 --> 00:02:48.439 OK, so let's unpack his journey. And we have 00:02:48.439 --> 00:02:50.599 to start at the beginning because Evans's background 00:02:50.599 --> 00:02:53.199 is it's so important in understanding the kind 00:02:53.199 --> 00:02:55.599 of intellectual curiosity he brought to the camera. 00:02:55.740 --> 00:02:57.500 It really is. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri 00:02:57.500 --> 00:03:01.150 in 19. But he was raised in a, well, a very affluent 00:03:01.150 --> 00:03:03.490 world. This was not a starving artist story from 00:03:03.490 --> 00:03:05.509 the get go. Not at all. He grew up in wealthy 00:03:05.509 --> 00:03:08.090 areas in Toledo, Chicago, New York City. His 00:03:08.090 --> 00:03:10.330 father was an advertising director. Which is 00:03:10.330 --> 00:03:12.370 interesting. That would have given him an early 00:03:12.370 --> 00:03:15.469 look into the power of images. Yeah. Visual persuasion. 00:03:15.569 --> 00:03:17.889 Yeah. Even if he later kind of rejected that 00:03:17.889 --> 00:03:20.550 whole commercial world. Exactly. And his education 00:03:20.550 --> 00:03:22.509 was very privileged. He graduated from Phillips 00:03:22.509 --> 00:03:25.030 Academy in 1922, then went to Williams College. 00:03:26.800 --> 00:03:29.180 It seems like the formal structure of college 00:03:29.180 --> 00:03:31.139 just wasn't for him. He dropped out. After only 00:03:31.139 --> 00:03:33.620 a year. But it wasn't because he didn't want 00:03:33.620 --> 00:03:36.080 to learn. The sources are really clear on this. 00:03:36.219 --> 00:03:38.860 He basically lived in the college library, designing 00:03:38.860 --> 00:03:41.860 his own curriculum. Was he studying? French literature. 00:03:41.979 --> 00:03:45.020 He was completely obsessed. So his mind was already 00:03:45.020 --> 00:03:47.879 steeped in this world of literary modernism, 00:03:47.939 --> 00:03:49.960 you know, very structured, very observational. 00:03:50.599 --> 00:03:54.280 And when he got back to New York, he takes this 00:03:54.280 --> 00:03:58.250 wonderfully. Humble but also very fitting job. 00:03:58.569 --> 00:04:01.250 Yeah. He was a night attendant in the map room 00:04:01.250 --> 00:04:03.090 of the New York Public Library. You can just 00:04:03.090 --> 00:04:05.689 picture it. Right. Surrounded by all this cartography. 00:04:05.930 --> 00:04:08.789 Maps are authoritative. They're detailed. They're 00:04:08.789 --> 00:04:11.569 silent. It's a perfect visual foundation for 00:04:11.569 --> 00:04:13.069 the kind of photography he was about to get into. 00:04:13.289 --> 00:04:16.569 And he didn't stay in New York. That literary 00:04:16.569 --> 00:04:21.269 passion took him to Paris for a year. A defining 00:04:21.269 --> 00:04:24.230 year. It really cemented his connection to that 00:04:24.230 --> 00:04:26.949 European high culture, the art scene that was 00:04:26.949 --> 00:04:29.110 emerging. So when he comes back, he dives right 00:04:29.110 --> 00:04:31.810 into this very sophisticated literary and art 00:04:31.810 --> 00:04:33.910 crowd in New York. And these weren't nobodies. 00:04:33.930 --> 00:04:36.269 He's friends with the writer John Cheever, the 00:04:36.269 --> 00:04:38.550 poet Hart Crane, and maybe most importantly, 00:04:38.730 --> 00:04:41.629 this hugely influential arts patron, Lincoln 00:04:41.629 --> 00:04:44.290 Kirstein. He was already part of the intellectual 00:04:44.290 --> 00:04:46.649 elite way before he was known as a photographer. 00:04:46.910 --> 00:04:48.930 But the camera itself doesn't become his main 00:04:48.930 --> 00:04:51.930 thing until 1928. It's like he spent his whole 00:04:51.930 --> 00:04:54.339 youth... building this intellectual framework. 00:04:54.620 --> 00:04:56.519 And then realized that photography was the most 00:04:56.519 --> 00:04:59.019 powerful, the most modern tool to express it. 00:04:59.060 --> 00:05:00.959 It was a very deliberate shift then. Yeah. From 00:05:00.959 --> 00:05:04.100 wanting to be a writer to becoming a visual documentarian. 00:05:04.259 --> 00:05:07.279 Very. And his influences weren't American portrait 00:05:07.279 --> 00:05:09.720 painters. They were these European masters who 00:05:09.720 --> 00:05:11.959 were already creating these huge, systematic 00:05:11.959 --> 00:05:14.519 visual catalogs of the world. Who are we talking 00:05:14.519 --> 00:05:17.139 about here? Who are these masters? Two main figures. 00:05:17.459 --> 00:05:20.420 First, Eugene Atgett, who had been obsessively 00:05:20.420 --> 00:05:22.660 documenting old Paris as it was. was disappearing. 00:05:22.980 --> 00:05:26.160 His style was very clear, almost clinical. And 00:05:26.160 --> 00:05:28.180 the other? August Sandberg. Sandberg was in the 00:05:28.180 --> 00:05:30.740 middle of this massive project to catalog all 00:05:30.740 --> 00:05:32.779 the different classes and professions in German 00:05:32.779 --> 00:05:35.000 society. So they were basically trying to create 00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:37.439 visual encyclopedias. Exactly. They were making 00:05:37.439 --> 00:05:40.620 authoritative records. Evans just soaked up that 00:05:40.620 --> 00:05:44.459 systematic approach, rejecting any kind of sentimentality 00:05:44.459 --> 00:05:47.100 for this, this formal clarity that became his 00:05:47.100 --> 00:05:49.319 trademark. And it paid off pretty fast. Very 00:05:49.319 --> 00:05:52.899 fast. By 1930, just two years after he really 00:05:52.899 --> 00:05:55.500 starts taking pictures, his work is getting published 00:05:55.500 --> 00:05:59.180 in a huge artistic context. He had three photographs 00:05:59.180 --> 00:06:01.660 of the Brooklyn Bridge in Hart Crane's famous 00:06:01.660 --> 00:06:04.399 book of poetry, The Bridge. So he wasn't just 00:06:04.399 --> 00:06:06.939 illustrating the text. His images were being 00:06:06.939 --> 00:06:09.540 treated as visual poems themselves, on the same 00:06:09.540 --> 00:06:12.240 level as this vanguard literature. It immediately 00:06:12.240 --> 00:06:15.259 elevated his status, and his early patron, Lincoln 00:06:15.259 --> 00:06:18.740 Kirstein, saw this unique eye he had. In 1931, 00:06:19.079 --> 00:06:21.180 Kirstein sponsors this really important early 00:06:21.180 --> 00:06:23.699 project for him. What was that? Documenting Victorian 00:06:23.699 --> 00:06:27.019 houses around Boston. And this really establishes 00:06:27.019 --> 00:06:29.620 a core theme in all of Evans' work, this fascination 00:06:29.620 --> 00:06:33.480 with the anonymous, formal structures of American 00:06:33.480 --> 00:06:35.480 life. This is where we need to talk about the 00:06:35.480 --> 00:06:38.220 vernacular. Yes. We should probably define that 00:06:38.220 --> 00:06:40.139 for listeners. When we say vernacular architecture, 00:06:40.439 --> 00:06:42.740 we're talking about everyday, ordinary buildings. 00:06:43.060 --> 00:06:46.399 Things that weren't designed by some famous architect. 00:06:46.740 --> 00:06:49.079 So like a standard frame house, a roadside sign, 00:06:49.240 --> 00:06:51.720 a simple storefront. Exactly. And Evans was giving 00:06:51.720 --> 00:06:54.139 these anonymous, commonplace objects the same 00:06:54.139 --> 00:06:56.180 kind of formal respect that a classical painter 00:06:56.180 --> 00:06:59.240 might give a king's portrait. By taking a picture 00:06:59.240 --> 00:07:01.279 of a simple Victorian house with that kind of 00:07:01.279 --> 00:07:04.120 clarity, He was making a statement. He was. He 00:07:04.120 --> 00:07:06.379 was saying that this ordinary house is just as 00:07:06.379 --> 00:07:08.740 important, just as revealing about the American 00:07:08.740 --> 00:07:11.759 character as any grand monument. And that idea 00:07:11.759 --> 00:07:14.139 becomes the absolute foundation for his most 00:07:14.139 --> 00:07:16.620 defining work. So moving on from his origins, 00:07:16.660 --> 00:07:19.779 there's this this real crucible moment that defined 00:07:19.779 --> 00:07:22.160 his early fieldwork. And it happened in Cuba. 00:07:22.300 --> 00:07:25.480 Section two is all about his pre -depression 00:07:25.480 --> 00:07:28.620 assignment there in 1933. And this was not a 00:07:28.620 --> 00:07:31.009 vacation. No, this was a very serious political 00:07:31.009 --> 00:07:33.629 job. It was far more than just an artistic trip. 00:07:33.889 --> 00:07:36.649 He was on assignment for the publisher Lippincott. 00:07:37.100 --> 00:07:39.620 And what was the book? It was for Carlton Beal's 00:07:39.620 --> 00:07:42.459 book, The Crime of Cuba, which the sources describe 00:07:42.459 --> 00:07:46.060 as a strident account of the brutal dictatorship 00:07:46.060 --> 00:07:48.959 of Gerardo Machado. So Evans wasn't there to 00:07:48.959 --> 00:07:51.319 shoot beautiful scenery. He was there to collect 00:07:51.319 --> 00:07:54.800 visual evidence against a dictator. He was essentially 00:07:54.800 --> 00:07:57.800 a visual investigative reporter. That context 00:07:57.800 --> 00:08:00.660 just adds so much weight to the photos he took. 00:08:00.899 --> 00:08:02.959 So what did he focus on? What was he looking 00:08:02.959 --> 00:08:05.459 for in Havana? He was deliberately looking for 00:08:05.459 --> 00:08:08.540 the visible signs. of a repressed society. So 00:08:08.540 --> 00:08:10.899 his photos capture the tension of street life, 00:08:11.139 --> 00:08:14.060 the obvious poverty. You see beggars, dock workers 00:08:14.060 --> 00:08:17.680 in rags, sad waterfront scenes, and then just 00:08:17.680 --> 00:08:20.199 the constant oppressive presence of the police 00:08:20.199 --> 00:08:23.000 and the military. He didn't capture a riot in 00:08:23.000 --> 00:08:25.120 progress. No, the atmosphere of fear and control 00:08:25.120 --> 00:08:27.819 was right there in the fabric of the city. 31 00:08:27.819 --> 00:08:29.860 of his photos ended up in Beale's book, which 00:08:29.860 --> 00:08:31.939 means this was his first real test in creating 00:08:31.939 --> 00:08:35.440 that authoritative documentation for really politically 00:08:35.440 --> 00:08:38.460 - charge story. And it was the absolute opposite 00:08:38.460 --> 00:08:40.759 of his dad's advertising career. This was documentation 00:08:40.759 --> 00:08:44.100 meant to expose something, not sell it. And it 00:08:44.100 --> 00:08:46.659 was a trial by fire. It allowed him to really 00:08:46.659 --> 00:08:50.080 hone his style, that formal composition, incredible 00:08:50.080 --> 00:08:53.879 detail, and this very nonjudgmental presentation 00:08:53.879 --> 00:08:56.960 of really tough subject matter. He just lets 00:08:56.960 --> 00:08:59.379 the subject speak for itself. And this is where 00:08:59.379 --> 00:09:01.399 we get that fascinating connection between his 00:09:01.399 --> 00:09:05.350 social mission and his literary world. The Hemingway 00:09:05.350 --> 00:09:07.210 connection. Yeah, the sources have this great 00:09:07.210 --> 00:09:10.070 anecdote. Evans was drinking nightly with Ernest 00:09:10.070 --> 00:09:12.149 Hemingway, who was already a big deal in Havana. 00:09:12.389 --> 00:09:14.389 And Hemingway becomes a kind of temporary patron. 00:09:14.570 --> 00:09:17.169 He does. He lends Evans enough money to extend 00:09:17.169 --> 00:09:19.250 his two -week trip for another week. The level 00:09:19.250 --> 00:09:21.429 of trust there is pretty remarkable. And he was 00:09:21.429 --> 00:09:23.529 more than just a drinking buddy, right? Evans 00:09:23.529 --> 00:09:25.889 actually helped him with his work. He did. He 00:09:25.889 --> 00:09:27.929 helped Hemingway get his hands on photos from 00:09:27.929 --> 00:09:30.570 local newspaper archives, photos that documented 00:09:30.570 --> 00:09:32.929 all the political violence. Hemingway needed 00:09:32.929 --> 00:09:35.490 that stuff as factual grounding for his novel 00:09:35.490 --> 00:09:38.629 to have and have not. So Evans, the literary 00:09:38.629 --> 00:09:41.190 guy turned photographer, is now feeding visual 00:09:41.190 --> 00:09:43.509 evidence to one of the biggest writers of the 00:09:43.509 --> 00:09:46.450 20th century. It's an amazing convergence. But 00:09:46.450 --> 00:09:48.549 the most intriguing detail from this whole Cuba 00:09:48.549 --> 00:09:51.639 trip comes from the political fear. The story 00:09:51.639 --> 00:09:53.620 of the hidden prints. This really highlights 00:09:53.620 --> 00:09:56.679 how dangerous it was. Absolutely. Evans knew 00:09:56.679 --> 00:09:59.320 that his photos, these unposed shots of police 00:09:59.320 --> 00:10:02.059 and poverty, could easily be seen as critical 00:10:02.059 --> 00:10:04.740 of the Machado government. He was genuinely afraid 00:10:04.740 --> 00:10:06.840 the authorities would just confiscate all his 00:10:06.840 --> 00:10:08.740 negatives and prints before he left the country. 00:10:08.980 --> 00:10:11.299 So what did he do to protect his work? He took 00:10:11.299 --> 00:10:14.379 this huge precaution. He left a batch of 46 prints 00:10:14.379 --> 00:10:17.539 with Hemingway for safekeeping. Wow. Yeah. He 00:10:17.539 --> 00:10:19.320 took his negatives back to the U .S., but he 00:10:19.320 --> 00:10:22.000 hid those 46 prints away in Havana. It was a 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:23.899 pretty dramatic move to protect his work. And 00:10:23.899 --> 00:10:26.740 those prints were just gone for decades. For 00:10:26.740 --> 00:10:29.080 decades. They just vanished into history, locked 00:10:29.080 --> 00:10:31.600 away until they were rediscovered in Havana in 00:10:31.600 --> 00:10:34.960 2002. 70 years later. Almost 70 years later. 00:10:35.279 --> 00:10:38.750 They were eventually exhibited in Key West. It's 00:10:38.750 --> 00:10:41.289 like finding a lost chapter of his artistic development, 00:10:41.509 --> 00:10:44.129 one that he intentionally hid to avoid censorship. 00:10:44.740 --> 00:10:47.240 That experience definitely hardened his view 00:10:47.240 --> 00:10:50.259 of documentation as a political and often dangerous 00:10:50.259 --> 00:10:53.559 act. It totally reframes that Cuba trip. It wasn't 00:10:53.559 --> 00:10:55.399 just an assignment. It was a critical foundation. 00:10:55.740 --> 00:10:58.139 He learned how to work under pressure, under 00:10:58.139 --> 00:11:00.879 the threat of official disapproval. And he would 00:11:00.879 --> 00:11:03.360 need that experience back in the States very, 00:11:03.440 --> 00:11:05.879 very soon. So after that high stakes work in 00:11:05.879 --> 00:11:08.720 Cuba, we get to the monumental period. Section 00:11:08.720 --> 00:11:11.080 three is where Walker Evans really defines an 00:11:11.080 --> 00:11:13.740 era and I think achieves that transcendent quality. 00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:16.519 he was aiming for. The sources all agree that 00:11:16.519 --> 00:11:20.000 the years 1935 to 1936 were a time of just remarkable 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:22.480 productivity and accomplishment. This is where 00:11:22.480 --> 00:11:24.879 his visual catalog of America really begins and 00:11:24.879 --> 00:11:27.340 is powered by the New Deal. He starts his government 00:11:27.340 --> 00:11:30.559 work in 1935 with this fixed term campaign in 00:11:30.559 --> 00:11:32.659 West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Right. At first, 00:11:32.679 --> 00:11:35.000 it's just a limited two month job for the Department 00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:37.779 of the Interior. His task was to photograph a 00:11:37.779 --> 00:11:39.960 government -built resettlement community. What 00:11:39.960 --> 00:11:42.580 was that exactly? It was an ambitious project 00:11:42.580 --> 00:11:46.179 to build new towns, basically, with housing and 00:11:46.179 --> 00:11:49.679 jobs for unemployed coal miners. The government 00:11:49.679 --> 00:11:52.059 really needed to show the public that these big 00:11:52.059 --> 00:11:54.620 programs were actually working, that they were 00:11:54.620 --> 00:11:57.440 real and concrete. And that temporary gig turns 00:11:57.440 --> 00:12:00.500 into his career -defining role. He becomes an 00:12:00.500 --> 00:12:03.179 information specialist in the Resettlement Administration, 00:12:03.720 --> 00:12:06.080 the RA. And the R .A. pretty quickly becomes 00:12:06.080 --> 00:12:08.159 the more famous Farm Security Administration, 00:12:08.620 --> 00:12:10.480 the FSA, which was part of the Department of 00:12:10.480 --> 00:12:13.720 Agriculture. Evans's mission then shifts to focus 00:12:13.720 --> 00:12:16.360 almost entirely on the American South, starting 00:12:16.360 --> 00:12:19.940 in October 1935. And the FSA's job was to show 00:12:19.940 --> 00:12:22.799 the scope of rural poverty and distress. Right. 00:12:23.240 --> 00:12:25.820 to justify all this federal aid. Exactly. He 00:12:25.820 --> 00:12:27.600 wasn't alone, of course. He was working alongside 00:12:27.600 --> 00:12:30.820 other giants like Dorothea Lange. But his style, 00:12:30.899 --> 00:12:33.460 his methods, they really set him apart. And we 00:12:33.460 --> 00:12:35.059 have to talk about his technical choices here 00:12:35.059 --> 00:12:37.159 because it directly connects to that authoritative 00:12:37.159 --> 00:12:39.200 feeling of his work. Okay, let's get into that. 00:12:39.480 --> 00:12:42.279 Well, the critical point is that he was not using 00:12:42.279 --> 00:12:46.320 a small, fast, handheld camera like a 35mm. For 00:12:46.320 --> 00:12:48.960 most of his New Deal work, he used a large format 00:12:48.960 --> 00:12:51.759 8x10 inch view camera. So for anyone who doesn't 00:12:51.759 --> 00:12:53.899 know, what does that mean? An 8x10 camera, what's 00:12:53.899 --> 00:12:55.620 the impact of that choice? It means everything 00:12:55.620 --> 00:12:58.600 is slow and deliberate. The camera is huge. It's 00:12:58.600 --> 00:13:01.120 cumbersome. You need a heavy tripod. You have 00:13:01.120 --> 00:13:03.279 to compose the image upside down on a ground 00:13:03.279 --> 00:13:06.120 glass under a dark cloth. It's the total opposite 00:13:06.120 --> 00:13:08.159 of being spontaneous. The total opposite. The 00:13:08.159 --> 00:13:10.559 subject knows they're being photographed. The 00:13:10.559 --> 00:13:12.279 photographer has to be completely deliberate. 00:13:12.299 --> 00:13:15.379 It forces stillness and formality. But the negative 00:13:15.379 --> 00:13:18.279 you get is massive, 8 inches by 10 inches. It 00:13:18.279 --> 00:13:20.620 captures an unbelievable amount of detail and 00:13:20.620 --> 00:13:24.159 resolution. So that slow... mechanical process 00:13:24.159 --> 00:13:27.519 is reinforcing his artistic goal. It makes the 00:13:27.519 --> 00:13:30.620 images feel authoritative because the process 00:13:30.620 --> 00:13:34.220 itself demands that level of deliberation. Precisely. 00:13:34.220 --> 00:13:37.240 The final image is this indisputable high resolution 00:13:37.240 --> 00:13:39.840 record. The subject is presented with this kind 00:13:39.840 --> 00:13:41.740 of dignity that comes from the formal composition, 00:13:41.980 --> 00:13:44.399 even if they're standing in rags. We have some 00:13:44.399 --> 00:13:46.240 iconic examples from this time that show this 00:13:46.240 --> 00:13:48.740 perfectly. Let's start with Bethlehem Graveyard 00:13:48.740 --> 00:13:51.980 and Steel Mill from November 1935 in Pennsylvania. 00:13:52.509 --> 00:13:55.070 Yeah, this image is just a masterclass in composition 00:13:55.070 --> 00:13:58.549 and social commentary. Evans places St. Michael's 00:13:58.549 --> 00:14:00.509 Cemetery right in the foreground. You see the 00:14:00.509 --> 00:14:02.570 gravestones, the markers of history, mortality, 00:14:03.029 --> 00:14:05.210 the people who came before. And right behind 00:14:05.210 --> 00:14:08.409 it. Looming over it are the huge industrial smokestacks 00:14:08.409 --> 00:14:10.750 of Bethlehem steel. So it's not just a pretty 00:14:10.750 --> 00:14:13.289 picture. It's a very controlled statement about 00:14:13.289 --> 00:14:15.450 the American landscape. Absolutely. Industry. 00:14:16.080 --> 00:14:18.399 The source of jobs, but also pollution and a 00:14:18.399 --> 00:14:21.059 kind of brutal progress is literally standing 00:14:21.059 --> 00:14:23.600 on top of the resting place of the workers who 00:14:23.600 --> 00:14:26.279 built it. It's a metaphor for these conflicting 00:14:26.279 --> 00:14:29.659 priorities, prosperity and exploitation, history 00:14:29.659 --> 00:14:32.659 and the future. It's all in one perfectly balanced 00:14:32.659 --> 00:14:35.159 frame. This is that literate quality in action. 00:14:35.379 --> 00:14:37.580 And his focus wasn't just on industry or faces. 00:14:37.720 --> 00:14:39.879 He kept going with that theme. He started with 00:14:39.879 --> 00:14:42.299 Lincoln Kirstein documenting the vernacular. 00:14:42.839 --> 00:14:45.860 Let's talk about his March 1936 photo, Frame 00:14:45.860 --> 00:14:48.720 House, Charleston, South Carolina. That's a great 00:14:48.720 --> 00:14:51.240 example of his bigger project, which was cataloging 00:14:51.240 --> 00:14:54.159 America. Why photograph a simple, maybe even 00:14:54.159 --> 00:14:57.379 rundown frame house? Because he believed that 00:14:57.379 --> 00:14:59.980 this anonymous, everyday architecture, the small 00:14:59.980 --> 00:15:02.799 church, the gas station, the roadside sign, tells 00:15:02.799 --> 00:15:04.720 you more about the soul of a place than a big 00:15:04.720 --> 00:15:07.120 government building. He was elevating the commonplace 00:15:07.120 --> 00:15:09.659 to the level of high art. He was building this 00:15:09.659 --> 00:15:12.080 visual inventory, treating these structures with 00:15:12.080 --> 00:15:14.659 this incredible formal seriousness. He was saying, 00:15:14.720 --> 00:15:17.419 look at this house. It's important. It's permanent. 00:15:17.519 --> 00:15:20.200 It is part of the American visual record. And 00:15:20.200 --> 00:15:22.539 his success with the FSA, where he made thousands 00:15:22.539 --> 00:15:24.940 of these records, set the stage for his most 00:15:24.940 --> 00:15:27.399 fairest and most controversial work. All right, 00:15:27.419 --> 00:15:30.600 section four. This is where the artistic triumph 00:15:30.600 --> 00:15:33.740 and the most difficult ethical questions of Evans' 00:15:33.879 --> 00:15:36.460 career just collide head on. The story of Let 00:15:36.460 --> 00:15:39.250 Us Now, Trey's Famous Men. This is the ethical 00:15:39.250 --> 00:15:41.370 crucible of his career, no question. It all centered 00:15:41.370 --> 00:15:43.490 on his collaboration with the writer James Adagie. 00:15:43.570 --> 00:15:46.429 The project starts in the summer of 1936. Evans 00:15:46.429 --> 00:15:49.090 takes a leave of absence from the FSA, and he 00:15:49.090 --> 00:15:51.230 and Adagie are sent by Fortune magazine down 00:15:51.230 --> 00:15:54.070 to Hale County, Alabama. And their assignment 00:15:54.070 --> 00:15:57.090 was to report on the lives of white tenant farmers. 00:15:57.570 --> 00:16:01.250 A story that would require this just... unprecedented 00:16:01.250 --> 00:16:04.129 level of intimacy and access. And here's the 00:16:04.129 --> 00:16:06.590 great irony. Fortune commissions this incredibly 00:16:06.590 --> 00:16:09.029 intensive piece of journalism, and then they 00:16:09.029 --> 00:16:11.870 refuse to publish it. Why? The material was just 00:16:11.870 --> 00:16:14.429 too raw. It was too personal, too intense, too 00:16:14.429 --> 00:16:16.850 critical of the whole system. It was just considered 00:16:16.850 --> 00:16:19.629 too unorthodox for their readers at the time. 00:16:19.750 --> 00:16:22.250 But that material, thank goodness, was preserved. 00:16:22.929 --> 00:16:25.929 The photos and Abjia's texts were finally published 00:16:25.929 --> 00:16:29.309 as the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men in 1941. 00:16:30.080 --> 00:16:32.279 And it documented their stay with three specific 00:16:32.279 --> 00:16:34.899 families. Right. The families headed by Bud Fields, 00:16:35.240 --> 00:16:37.659 Floyd Burroughs, and Frank Tingle. And specifically, 00:16:37.740 --> 00:16:40.080 the images of Allie Mae Burroughs, who was Floyd's 00:16:40.080 --> 00:16:42.820 wife, became instantly iconic. Those portraits 00:16:42.820 --> 00:16:45.220 are now the quintessential visual shorthand for 00:16:45.220 --> 00:16:48.220 Depression -era hardship and quiet dignity. But 00:16:48.220 --> 00:16:50.200 the collaboration itself created this powerful 00:16:50.200 --> 00:16:53.299 contradiction, what the critic Janet Malcolm 00:16:53.299 --> 00:16:56.220 called an anguished dissonance. The text and 00:16:56.220 --> 00:16:58.019 the photos almost seem to be fighting with each 00:16:58.019 --> 00:17:01.259 other. They absolutely are. Aji's writing is 00:17:01.259 --> 00:17:04.220 this desperate, almost overwrought cry of pain. 00:17:04.440 --> 00:17:08.079 It's so emotional, so judgmental about the injustices 00:17:08.079 --> 00:17:10.619 that trap these families. And it's written with 00:17:10.619 --> 00:17:13.400 this intense sense of personal guilt over his 00:17:13.400 --> 00:17:15.779 own role as an observer. But Evans's photos? 00:17:16.039 --> 00:17:18.440 Evans's photos are the exact opposite. They're 00:17:18.440 --> 00:17:21.079 silent. They're so formally composed, symmetrical. 00:17:21.500 --> 00:17:23.940 They have this, as Malcolm called it, quiet, 00:17:24.119 --> 00:17:27.509 magisterial beauty. They are facts, not sermons. 00:17:27.690 --> 00:17:30.029 He was deliberately refusing to get caught up 00:17:30.029 --> 00:17:33.450 in Eiji's emotional storm. Completely. His pictures 00:17:33.450 --> 00:17:35.769 presented the interiors of their cabins, the 00:17:35.769 --> 00:17:38.289 faces of the kids, the clothes they wore as these 00:17:38.289 --> 00:17:41.150 formal, almost classical subjects. The message 00:17:41.150 --> 00:17:43.230 feels like Eiji's telling you how awful they 00:17:43.230 --> 00:17:45.789 feel, but I'm showing you the enduring architectural 00:17:45.789 --> 00:17:49.119 facts of their existence. And in that... They 00:17:49.119 --> 00:17:51.359 possess dignity. And that artistic difference 00:17:51.359 --> 00:17:53.700 is what leads to the core ethical problem, something 00:17:53.700 --> 00:17:55.359 the families had to deal with for the rest of 00:17:55.359 --> 00:17:58.079 their lives. For sure. The sources detailed the 00:17:58.079 --> 00:18:00.500 controversy and the resentment felt by the descendants 00:18:00.500 --> 00:18:03.099 decades later. I mean, there was immediate fear. 00:18:03.319 --> 00:18:05.859 The landowners told the families that Evans and 00:18:05.859 --> 00:18:10.319 Agee were Soviet agents. Yeah, trying to scare 00:18:10.319 --> 00:18:13.099 them into not cooperating. Allie Mae Burroughs 00:18:13.099 --> 00:18:15.000 later said she didn't believe that, but the deeper 00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:18.130 sense of being exploited, that stayed. The burden 00:18:18.130 --> 00:18:21.170 of being the subject of iconic art about poverty 00:18:21.170 --> 00:18:24.500 is... It's just profound. It is. The sources 00:18:24.500 --> 00:18:26.579 talk about the pain that was still there when 00:18:26.579 --> 00:18:29.119 Fortune magazine went back to Hale County in 00:18:29.119 --> 00:18:32.299 2005 for their 75th anniversary. They talked 00:18:32.299 --> 00:18:34.779 to Charles Burroughs, who was Floyd and Ali May's 00:18:34.779 --> 00:18:37.200 son. He was only four when Evans and Agee were 00:18:37.200 --> 00:18:40.000 there. And even after all that time? Over 60 00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:42.359 years later, Charles Burroughs was, and I'm quoting, 00:18:42.579 --> 00:18:45.279 still angry at them. That is a deep, persistent 00:18:45.279 --> 00:18:47.299 wound. What was he angry about specifically? 00:18:47.779 --> 00:18:49.880 A couple of things. One, that they never even 00:18:49.880 --> 00:18:51.859 sent the family a copy of the book. He felt like 00:18:51.859 --> 00:18:54.240 they were just used and then discarded. But more 00:18:54.240 --> 00:18:56.359 than that, he was angry that his family was, 00:18:56.539 --> 00:18:58.660 in his words, cast in a light that they couldn't 00:18:58.660 --> 00:19:00.599 do any better, that they were doomed, ignorant. 00:19:01.259 --> 00:19:04.819 Doomed, ignorant. Wow. That's just a heartbreaking 00:19:04.819 --> 00:19:06.799 summary of how this subject can feel betrayed. 00:19:07.440 --> 00:19:09.900 Evans' goal was transcendence, but for the family, 00:19:09.940 --> 00:19:11.900 the result was feeling like their own agency 00:19:11.900 --> 00:19:14.240 was stripped away and they were just fixed forever 00:19:14.240 --> 00:19:16.640 as these symbols of misery. It forces us to ask 00:19:16.640 --> 00:19:19.420 that question. When documentation serves a big 00:19:19.420 --> 00:19:22.039 artistic or political agenda, even a noble one, 00:19:22.359 --> 00:19:25.440 can the artist ever be truly nonjudgmental without 00:19:25.440 --> 00:19:27.759 causing harm to the person who becomes the symbol? 00:19:28.039 --> 00:19:30.819 The whole complex legacy of that book is that 00:19:30.819 --> 00:19:34.779 its artistic triumph came at a real last. So 00:19:34.779 --> 00:19:38.640 Evan stays with the FSA until 1938. But his career 00:19:38.640 --> 00:19:41.039 just explodes beyond government work after that. 00:19:41.140 --> 00:19:43.220 And 1938, according to the sources, was this 00:19:43.220 --> 00:19:45.279 year of just incredible milestones for him. It 00:19:45.279 --> 00:19:47.599 was a huge year. In 1938, the Museum of Modern 00:19:47.599 --> 00:19:50.059 Art MoMA gives him a solo exhibition called Walker 00:19:50.059 --> 00:19:52.640 Evans, American Photographs. This was, I mean, 00:19:52.660 --> 00:19:54.900 groundbreaking. It was the first exhibition in 00:19:54.900 --> 00:19:57.079 the museum's entire history that was devoted 00:19:57.079 --> 00:19:59.259 to the work of a single photographer. That's 00:19:59.259 --> 00:20:01.779 the highest form of validation you can get. It 00:20:01.779 --> 00:20:04.220 officially puts documentary photography on the 00:20:04.220 --> 00:20:07.740 same level as painting or sculpture. just a government 00:20:07.740 --> 00:20:10.220 photographer anymore. He's a major artist. Exactly. 00:20:10.220 --> 00:20:13.059 And the catalog for that show had an essay by 00:20:13.059 --> 00:20:15.619 his old friend and patron, Lincoln Kirstein. 00:20:15.740 --> 00:20:18.220 So this is his canonization. But at the exact 00:20:18.220 --> 00:20:21.019 same time, he's starting one of his most radical 00:20:21.019 --> 00:20:24.700 and covert experiments. This is the hidden camera 00:20:24.700 --> 00:20:27.339 project in the New York City subway. Yes. Also 00:20:27.339 --> 00:20:30.160 starting in 1938. For this, he used a camera 00:20:30.160 --> 00:20:32.180 hidden inside his coat, which let him photograph 00:20:32.180 --> 00:20:34.779 people on the subway completely unposed and totally 00:20:34.779 --> 00:20:38.140 unaware. It's such a contrast to the formal 8x10 00:20:38.140 --> 00:20:41.480 work. The FSA work captured the public face of 00:20:41.480 --> 00:20:44.319 America, the storefront, the house, the posed 00:20:44.319 --> 00:20:46.730 portrait. The Subway series feels like it's capturing 00:20:46.730 --> 00:20:49.329 the private, internal world of the city dweller. 00:20:49.410 --> 00:20:51.210 It's a totally different kind of document. It's 00:20:51.210 --> 00:20:53.910 about spontaneity, intimacy, the unintentional 00:20:53.910 --> 00:20:56.190 theater of city life. He's capturing isolation, 00:20:56.589 --> 00:20:59.009 exhaustion, private thoughts in this really dense 00:20:59.009 --> 00:21:01.549 public space. The photos were later collected 00:21:01.549 --> 00:21:04.349 in the book Many Are Called. And his influence 00:21:04.349 --> 00:21:06.980 wasn't just in his own work. He was passing it 00:21:06.980 --> 00:21:09.319 on to the next generation. Oh, absolutely. From 00:21:09.319 --> 00:21:12.579 1938 to 1939, he's working with and mentoring 00:21:12.579 --> 00:21:15.299 Helen Levitt, who goes on to become a giant of 00:21:15.299 --> 00:21:17.099 New York street photography in her own right. 00:21:17.380 --> 00:21:20.759 His circle was really the nucleus of modern documentary 00:21:20.759 --> 00:21:23.440 art. There's a fascinating detail about his process, 00:21:23.500 --> 00:21:26.240 though, specifically about printing. For someone 00:21:26.240 --> 00:21:29.539 so obsessed with the final image, he was surprisingly 00:21:29.539 --> 00:21:32.380 hands -off in the darkroom. This tells you so 00:21:32.380 --> 00:21:35.059 much about what he valued. The sources say that, 00:21:35.160 --> 00:21:37.700 kind of like Henri Cartier -Bresson, Evans almost 00:21:37.700 --> 00:21:40.440 never spent time physically making prints from 00:21:40.440 --> 00:21:42.900 his own negatives. Because who did it? He'd delegate 00:21:42.900 --> 00:21:45.339 it. He would loosely supervise the process, but 00:21:45.339 --> 00:21:47.180 sometimes he would just attach these handwritten 00:21:47.180 --> 00:21:49.200 notes to the negatives with instructions on how 00:21:49.200 --> 00:21:51.619 the final print should look. So his genius was 00:21:51.619 --> 00:21:54.819 in the capture. The vision. Yeah. Not the chemical 00:21:54.819 --> 00:21:57.519 process. Exactly. The authority of the image 00:21:57.519 --> 00:21:59.339 was locked in the moment the shutter clicked, 00:21:59.460 --> 00:22:01.319 thanks to his composition in that incredible 00:22:01.319 --> 00:22:04.420 large format camera. The physical print was just 00:22:04.420 --> 00:22:06.859 a technical task that needed to be managed as 00:22:06.859 --> 00:22:09.339 long as it met his standards. And then his career 00:22:09.339 --> 00:22:12.319 takes this huge shift away from being in the 00:22:12.319 --> 00:22:14.579 field and into these positions of institutional 00:22:14.579 --> 00:22:18.319 power. He was becoming a real... Right. First, 00:22:18.519 --> 00:22:20.519 he keeps getting validation for his own work. 00:22:20.619 --> 00:22:23.039 He gets three Guggenheim fellowships between 00:22:23.039 --> 00:22:26.240 1940 and 1959, which lets him keep documenting 00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:29.680 America long after the FSA was gone. Then he 00:22:29.680 --> 00:22:32.220 moves into these big editorial jobs. He becomes 00:22:32.220 --> 00:22:35.019 a staff writer at Time magazine in 1945. And 00:22:35.019 --> 00:22:38.160 then shortly after, an editor at Fortune from 00:22:38.160 --> 00:22:41.839 1945 all the way to 1965. And think about the 00:22:41.839 --> 00:22:44.250 irony there. The same magazine that rejected 00:22:44.250 --> 00:22:46.750 his work. The very same magazine that found his 00:22:46.750 --> 00:22:49.309 groundbreaking story on the Alabama tenant farmers 00:22:49.309 --> 00:22:52.569 too radical in 1936. He's now one of their editors 00:22:52.569 --> 00:22:55.309 and gatekeepers for two decades. So he goes from 00:22:55.309 --> 00:22:57.549 being the subject matter expert to the institutional 00:22:57.549 --> 00:23:00.569 authority, shaping what gets published in elite 00:23:00.569 --> 00:23:02.930 American media. And his final professional chapter 00:23:02.930 --> 00:23:06.190 is in academia, another key step in the institutionalization 00:23:06.190 --> 00:23:09.549 of photography. In 1965, he becomes a professor 00:23:09.549 --> 00:23:11.650 of photography on the graphic design faculty 00:23:11.650 --> 00:23:14.250 at the Yale University School of Art. That whole 00:23:14.250 --> 00:23:16.930 progression from field photographer to magazine 00:23:16.930 --> 00:23:19.869 editor to university professor, it mirrors the 00:23:19.869 --> 00:23:22.309 growing acceptance of photography as a serious 00:23:22.309 --> 00:23:25.069 art form. And he was central to making that happen. 00:23:25.420 --> 00:23:27.539 And his final projects, they reflect both his 00:23:27.539 --> 00:23:31.960 old style and, well, his age. In 1968, he does 00:23:31.960 --> 00:23:34.579 this formal black and white portfolio for the 00:23:34.579 --> 00:23:37.160 investment bank Brown Brothers Harriman, the 00:23:37.160 --> 00:23:39.619 same authoritative style he used on sharecroppers 00:23:39.619 --> 00:23:42.259 he's now using on corporate power. And then his 00:23:42.259 --> 00:23:46.339 very last work in 73 and 74 uses this brand new 00:23:46.339 --> 00:23:50.640 technology, the Polaroid SX -70 instant camera. 00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:53.420 Yeah, the sources say Polaroid knew who he was 00:23:53.420 --> 00:23:55.759 and just gave him an unlimited supply of film. 00:23:55.900 --> 00:23:58.799 After decades with that slow, heavy 8x10 camera, 00:23:59.099 --> 00:24:01.319 the instant simplicity of the Polaroid was just 00:24:01.319 --> 00:24:03.940 much easier for him as an older man. It shows 00:24:03.940 --> 00:24:06.000 he never lost that desire to capture the world 00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:08.519 right up to the very end. Okay, so Section 6 00:24:08.519 --> 00:24:10.759 brings us to his legacy, the definitive recognition 00:24:10.759 --> 00:24:13.660 he received, and this really crucial legal detail 00:24:13.660 --> 00:24:15.740 that shapes how we all see his images today. 00:24:16.019 --> 00:24:18.460 If we're trying to nail down his aesthetic, Evans 00:24:18.460 --> 00:24:21.779 actually gave it a name himself. He did. During 00:24:21.779 --> 00:24:24.579 a lecture at Yale in 1964, he called his own 00:24:24.579 --> 00:24:27.480 work lyric documentary. Which is perfect. It 00:24:27.480 --> 00:24:29.900 really is. It's the perfect summary of that tension 00:24:29.900 --> 00:24:31.759 we've been talking about. Documentary because 00:24:31.759 --> 00:24:35.579 it's based, in fact, in truth. But lyric because 00:24:35.579 --> 00:24:39.279 of the composition, the beauty. The formal poetry 00:24:39.279 --> 00:24:41.779 of it all. And other critics kept coming back 00:24:41.779 --> 00:24:44.599 to his focus on common things. Jane Tormey described 00:24:44.599 --> 00:24:46.980 his later work as having a vernacular style, 00:24:47.279 --> 00:24:50.720 just hammering home that core idea he pursued 00:24:50.720 --> 00:24:53.900 his whole life, elevating the everyday. And the 00:24:53.900 --> 00:24:56.319 art world gave him that final definitive stamp 00:24:56.319 --> 00:24:59.029 of approval while he was still alive. After that 00:24:59.029 --> 00:25:01.470 first MoMA show in 38, the first really definitive 00:25:01.470 --> 00:25:04.470 retrospective of his work came in 1971, curated 00:25:04.470 --> 00:25:06.730 by the legendary John Zarkowski. It was just 00:25:06.730 --> 00:25:09.569 called Walker Evans. The sheer scope of it confirmed 00:25:09.569 --> 00:25:12.609 his status as an essential American artist. And 00:25:12.609 --> 00:25:14.950 that recognition has just kept going. In 2000, 00:25:15.250 --> 00:25:17.690 The Met held another huge retrospective. He was 00:25:17.690 --> 00:25:19.779 inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. And 00:25:19.779 --> 00:25:22.420 you can see his influence in just the sheer volume 00:25:22.420 --> 00:25:24.799 of his work held in museums all over the world. 00:25:24.980 --> 00:25:27.660 The Art Institute of Chicago, the Getty, has 00:25:27.660 --> 00:25:31.599 over 1 ,300 of his works. His vision is preserved 00:25:31.599 --> 00:25:34.319 and accessible. He died in New Haven, Connecticut 00:25:34.319 --> 00:25:39.339 in 1975 at 71 after a stroke. But even the story 00:25:39.339 --> 00:25:42.440 of his final conversation. is all about his life's 00:25:42.440 --> 00:25:45.519 work. His focus was just unwavering. Hank O 'Neill, 00:25:45.660 --> 00:25:47.279 who was putting together this project about the 00:25:47.279 --> 00:25:49.940 FSA photographers called A Vision Shared, said 00:25:49.940 --> 00:25:51.920 that Evans called him to talk about finding one 00:25:51.920 --> 00:25:54.680 specific picture for the project. And that conversation 00:25:54.680 --> 00:25:56.980 about finding the Zach Wright visual document 00:25:56.980 --> 00:25:59.259 happened just an hour and a half before he died. 00:25:59.480 --> 00:26:01.460 It's incredible. It just underscores that his 00:26:01.460 --> 00:26:04.160 whole life was this constant, diligent assembly 00:26:04.160 --> 00:26:07.119 of the American visual inventory right up to 00:26:07.119 --> 00:26:09.579 his very last moments. Okay, so now we get to 00:26:09.579 --> 00:26:12.109 this crucial... legal detail about his legacy, 00:26:12.269 --> 00:26:14.670 the copyright distinction. This is the ultimate 00:26:14.670 --> 00:26:17.109 irony, and it's so important for how we see his 00:26:17.109 --> 00:26:20.029 work today. It is. There's a huge split in who 00:26:20.029 --> 00:26:22.150 owns his work, and it affects everyone, including 00:26:22.150 --> 00:26:23.849 you listening right now. Let's break it down. 00:26:24.069 --> 00:26:27.769 Okay, so in 1994, Evans' estate transferred most 00:26:27.769 --> 00:26:30.289 of its holdings, the subway series, the Cuba 00:26:30.289 --> 00:26:33.130 photos, all the later independent work, to the 00:26:33.130 --> 00:26:36.970 Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met is the sole 00:26:36.970 --> 00:26:39.390 copyright holder for the vast majority of his 00:26:39.390 --> 00:26:41.390 images. So if you want to use those photos, you 00:26:41.390 --> 00:26:43.869 have to go through the Met. But there's this 00:26:43.869 --> 00:26:46.450 massive, crucial exception. The one that changes 00:26:46.450 --> 00:26:50.119 everything. The group of about a thousand negatives 00:26:50.119 --> 00:26:52.500 that he created specifically for the Resettlement 00:26:52.500 --> 00:26:54.559 Administration and the Farm Security Administration, 00:26:55.019 --> 00:26:57.079 those are in the collection of the Library of 00:26:57.079 --> 00:26:59.359 Congress. And because he made those images while 00:26:59.359 --> 00:27:02.079 he was a U .S. government employee as part of 00:27:02.079 --> 00:27:03.940 a public work program. They are in the public 00:27:03.940 --> 00:27:06.279 domain. So the most famous, most historically 00:27:06.279 --> 00:27:09.079 important, most reproduced images, the portrait 00:27:09.079 --> 00:27:12.059 of L .A. Mayboros, the Alabama interiors, the 00:27:12.059 --> 00:27:14.539 iconic frame houses of the Depression are completely 00:27:14.539 --> 00:27:17.160 free for anyone to use, study and republish. 00:27:17.160 --> 00:27:20.180 It's this accidental but really profound outcome. 00:27:20.599 --> 00:27:23.019 The images that were commissioned to justify 00:27:23.019 --> 00:27:25.880 some temporary government aid became this permanent 00:27:25.880 --> 00:27:28.440 free gift to the visual history of the entire 00:27:28.440 --> 00:27:31.819 country. His desire for transcendence found its 00:27:31.819 --> 00:27:34.559 ultimate expression in public access. So wrapping 00:27:34.559 --> 00:27:37.279 up this deep dive, we've traced a career that 00:27:37.279 --> 00:27:40.519 really synthesized this literary rigor with a 00:27:40.519 --> 00:27:42.960 kind of photographic formality. He goes from 00:27:42.960 --> 00:27:45.859 this affluent intellectual background to creating 00:27:45.859 --> 00:27:49.160 the defining, nonjudgmental visual record of 00:27:49.160 --> 00:27:52.059 American hardship. He absolutely achieved his 00:27:52.059 --> 00:27:54.079 goal of making pictures that were authoritative 00:27:54.079 --> 00:27:57.170 and transcendent. But the enduring tension for 00:27:57.170 --> 00:27:59.789 me is still the ethical complexity of Let Us 00:27:59.789 --> 00:28:02.910 Now Praise Famous Men. His documentation, as 00:28:02.910 --> 00:28:05.390 important as it is to history, had a real lasting 00:28:05.390 --> 00:28:07.289 impact on the lives of the people he photographed. 00:28:07.289 --> 00:28:10.329 That feeling of exposure, of being fixed in time, 00:28:10.349 --> 00:28:13.009 is doomed ignorant, as Charles Burroughs put 00:28:13.009 --> 00:28:14.789 it. It just reminds you that the power of the 00:28:14.789 --> 00:28:17.009 documentarian is immense, and it comes with this 00:28:17.009 --> 00:28:20.130 lasting responsibility. It forces us to constantly 00:28:20.130 --> 00:28:22.450 think about that relationship between the artist 00:28:22.450 --> 00:28:25.130 and the subject, especially in times of crisis. 00:28:25.789 --> 00:28:28.789 When the images become transcendent art, what 00:28:28.789 --> 00:28:31.150 moral debt is owed to the person in the frame? 00:28:31.549 --> 00:28:33.789 That's the tension that will always define the 00:28:33.789 --> 00:28:36.150 genre he helped perfect. And that leads us right 00:28:36.150 --> 00:28:38.470 back to that final, fascinating twist of his 00:28:38.470 --> 00:28:41.289 legacy. Evans wanted his work to be permanent 00:28:41.289 --> 00:28:44.240 and transcendent. We talked about how his FSA 00:28:44.240 --> 00:28:46.279 work, the stuff he did on the government's payroll, 00:28:46.519 --> 00:28:49.319 is now in the public domain. Which ensures that 00:28:49.319 --> 00:28:51.440 those images of the Great Depression, the faces, 00:28:51.619 --> 00:28:54.920 the homes, the landscapes, can be endlessly reproduced, 00:28:54.980 --> 00:28:57.980 reinterpreted, and reused. It guarantees their 00:28:57.980 --> 00:29:00.220 immortality in a way that goes far beyond what 00:29:00.220 --> 00:29:02.599 the New Deal agencies ever intended. It's an 00:29:02.599 --> 00:29:05.359 enduring, free, and public record of a pivotal 00:29:05.359 --> 00:29:07.900 moment in history. But here's the provocative 00:29:07.900 --> 00:29:10.460 thought we want to leave you with. Does the universal 00:29:10.460 --> 00:29:13.240 public domain availability of those FSA photos, 00:29:13.480 --> 00:29:15.440 which guarantees they'll be seen by billions, 00:29:15.720 --> 00:29:18.519 offer a strange kind of retroactive justice to 00:29:18.519 --> 00:29:20.680 the subjects, like the Burroughs family, who 00:29:20.680 --> 00:29:23.819 felt so exploited by the art? Or does that public 00:29:23.819 --> 00:29:26.559 access simply perpetuate the symbolic representation 00:29:26.559 --> 00:29:29.619 of their suffering forever, denying them ownership 00:29:29.619 --> 00:29:32.680 of their own story for all time? The visual history 00:29:32.680 --> 00:29:35.460 of America remains a truly permanent but perpetually 00:29:35.460 --> 00:29:36.400 complicated vision.