A Penetrating Vision

Fifty-six photographs by Walker Evans, one of America's most prominent and profound documentary photographers to capture the shape and texture of the human environment. 

The exhibition, which is traveling under the auspices of the Western Association of Art Museums, San Francisco, California, is a survey of his work in the 1930's and 40 1s, reflecting his greatest achievements as he examined the country's physical and spiritual condition. 

For many Americans, Evans' photographs have become an important part of their visual history. Using landscapes, architecture, signs, transportation, people and street scenes of urban and rural settings in the Eastern United States, Evans accurately recorded the era with a direct, careful and detailed style. Yet, what is more capturing about these vivid images is the timeless and universal quality of the moment selected and depicted by Evans. He succeeded in revealing the bones of American culture to the American people by incorporating simple photography and social objectivity to create visual metaphors of human conditions. 

Forty-six of the photographs in this exhibition have been selected from a recent donation to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago made by Mr. Arnold Crane, one of the world's most prolific collectors of photography, and personal friend of Evans. Ten of the images are from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, preserver of thousands of prints and negatives produced by the photography unit of the Farm Security Administration of which Evans was a major participant. 

Organized and circulated by the Western Association of Art Museums, San Francisco, California.