Evans, Walker. Walker Evans. Introduction by John Szarkowski.

Museum of Modern Art, 1971. 1st edition. Summary:

Published by The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1971, Walker Evans is a landmark retrospective monograph surveying the photographer's career from 1929 to 1970. Edited as a comprehensive visual record, the 192-page volume features over 100 carefully curated plates—including iconic images from his Farm Security Administration depression-era work, his secret subway portraits, and his later essays for Fortune magazine.

The book's defining text is an insightful critical introduction by John Szarkowski, then Director of MoMA's Department of Photography. In the essay, Szarkowski explores:

• Evans' Core Philosophy: How Evans pioneered an exacting, straightforward approach to photography around 1930, treating the medium not as a vehicle for personal artistic manipulation, but as a way of discovering and preserving raw segments of time and reality.

• Historical Impact: How Evans deliberately distanced himself from the pictorialist traditions of Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen, instead finding kinship in anonymous vernacular photography and the work of Eugène Atget.

• Myth and Reality: Szarkowski famously posits that Evans did not merely record the America of his youth, but effectively invented the visual myth of that era's cultural landscape, providing a lasting set of visual symbols that define modern American identity.

• Later Career & Legacy: A brief look at Evans' transition into an influential professor at Yale University, where he served as a prophetic figure to a new generation of photographers.

• Walker Evans (1903–1975) was an American photographer best known for his defining documentation of the effects of the Great Depression, particularly through his work for the Farm Security Administration and his collaborative book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men with writer James Agee. Rejecting pictorialism in favor of an unembellished, direct style, Evans captured the vernacular landscape and quotidian aspects of American life with profound clarity. He later worked as a staff photographer and writer for Fortune magazine and finished his career as a professor of graphic arts at Yale University, leaving an enduring legacy as one of the twentieth century's most influential documentary artists.

Copies available:

• 1st edition, 1971, very good in cloth with good laminated dust jacket that retains the original price of $12.50. Dust jacket, which has some ripples and creases but no tears, has library spine label but the book has no library markings. 
• 1974 printing, good with good dust jacket.  Trace of red ink and scuff where a price removed that was written on page before title page.