Walker Evans
[Photographer, b. 1903, St. Louis, Missouri, d. 1975, New Haven, Connecticut.]

 The portraits on these pages were caught by a hidden camera, in the hands of a penitent spy and an apologetic voyeur. But the rude and impudent invasion involved has been carefully softened and partially mitigated by a planned passage of time. (On his “subway pictures,” 1938-41, on their publication in Harper’s Bazaar, 1962) 
 The photographer, the artist, “takes” a picture: symbolically he lifts an object or that composition... [He] has rendered his object in some way transcendent and... in each instance his vision has penetrating validity. 
 Evans was, and is, interested in what any present time will look like as the past. (An unpublished note characterizing his own work) 
 [The subway portraits were] a rebellion against studio portraiture.... I was angry. It was partly angry protest—not social, but aesthetic—against posed portraiture. 
 First of all, I tell [students] that art can’t be taught, but that it can be stimulated and a few barriers can be kicked down by a talented teacher, and an atmosphere can be created which is an opening into artistic action. But the thing itself is such a secret and so unapproachable. 
 Every artist who feels he has a style is a little wary automatically of strong work in view. I suppose we are all a little insecure. I don’t like to look at too much of Atget’s work because I am too close to that in style myself... It’s a little residue of insecurity and fear of such magnificent strength and style there. If it happens to border on yours, it makes you wonder how original you are. 
 The element of time entering into a photograph provides a departure for as much speculation as an observer can make. 
 [I was] doing some things that I thought were too plain to be works of art. I began to wonder. I knew I wanted to be an artist, but I wondered if I really was an artist. 
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