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Sotheby's: Photographs: Lot 52

PROPERTY OF VARIOUS OWNERS WALKER EVANS 1903-1975 'PENNY PICTURE DISPLAY, SAVANNAH'

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flush-mounted, signed by the photographer in pencil and with his photographer's credit (Keller stamp 'C') and reproduction rights stamps, and titled, dated, and annotated '2,' 'III-229,' I-12,' and '#632' in an unidentified hand in pencil and with a typed caption affixed to the reverse, matted, 1936, printed no later than 1971

PROVENANCE

Phillips New York, 13 November 1980, Lot 283
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

American Photographs (The Museum of Modern Art, 1988), Part One, pl. 2

Walker Evans at Work (New York, 1982 ), cover and p. 239

Walker Evans: First and Last (New York, 1978), p. 127

Walker Evans: Photographs for the Farm Security Administration, 1935-1938 (New York, 1973), p. 229, variant

Ellen Fleurov, Walker Evans, Simple Secrets: Photographs from the Collection of Marian and Benjamin A. Hill (High Museum of Art, 1997), p. 150, fig. 52

Peter Galassi, American Photography 1890-1965 from The Museum of Modern Art (The Museum of Modern Art, 1995), p. 144

Jeff L. Rosenheim et al., Walker Evans (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000), pl. 66, variant

Judith Keller, Walker Evans: The Getty Museum Collection (J. Paul Getty Museum, 1995), pl. 517, variant

Gilles Mora and John T. Hill, Walker Evans: The Hungry Eye (New York, 1993), p. 135, variant

John Szarkowski, Looking at Photographs (The Museum of Modern Art, 1973), p. 117
CATALOGUE NOTE

It is very likely that this print of Evans's iconic image, Penny Picture Display, was used to illustrate Leslie Katz's interview with the photographer in the March-April 1971 issue of Art in America (pp. 82-89). The article illustrates eight of Evans's photographs; Penny Picture Display is the second image reproduced, and the numeral '2,' which appears on the reverse of this print, no doubt refers to its placement in the sequence of illustrations. For the article, Evans spoke to Katz about each of the photographs reproduced, and his remarks are printed as captions adjacent to the respective illustrations. The caption for Penny Picture Display, as printed in the article and as it appears on the typed caption sheet on the reverse of this print, is as follows:

'The only reason this photograph has any value is, an instinct is touched in it. "This is for me." It's like the meaning of a person. The singular importance of this spoke to me that way. It's uproariously funny, and very touching and very sad and very human. Documentary, very real, very complex. all these people had posed in front of the local studio camera, and I bring my camera, and they all pose again together for me. That's a fabulous fact. I look at it and think, and think, and think about all those people. It was made in the thirties, in Savannah.'

Katz's interview is reproduced in its entirety in the book Walker Evans Incognito (Eakins Press, 1995).

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Catalogue Information

Auction House

Sotheby's

Auction Title

Photographs

Auction Date

2005

Location

USA

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View realised price and lot details for Lot 52: PROPERTY OF VARIOUS OWNERS WALKER EVANS 1903-1975 'PENNY PICTURE DISPLAY, SAVANNAH' from Sotheby's's Photographs. See additional auction price results for lots from this auction on the Sotheby's profile page.

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