A Look Back….

Born in St. Louis Missouri, in 1903, Walker Evans took up photography in 1928. He is best known for his work in the 1930’s documenting the effects of the Great Depression in photographs he took for the Farm Security Administration  (FSA). Although the image above is not part of his work with the FSA, he clearly could not resist the sight of junk cars as a symbol of the Great Depression.

Here he   deviates from his road trip documenting sharecroppers and turns to a field in rural Pennsylvania discovers perilous times have reached everywhere, as he   captures a landscape vista of the mechanized era. A barren field lying in waiting through a season of rest for a new crop has become an auto graveyard instead. By depicting the fate of these lifeless automobiles during an era of hardship he transfers almost human qualities to them, suggesting the fate of the owners and makers of these cars is probably not much different.

As a young man, Evans spent a summer working in an automobile factory as a lesson in earning money and the value of work. Much later, in April 1962, Evans authors an article titled, “The Auto Junkyard,” for Fortune Magazine, in which he reflects on the lifespan of a car, describing the scrap yard as a parody of the showroom. He describes rusted shells being scavenged and picked over for a second chance at life, with parts being swapped and sold in a process of disassembly that    reversed Henry Ford's famed assembly lines. He wrote, “…these obscene perversities leer out of the countryside almost anywhere, often in the middle of idyllic rural spots. …

Agonized travesties of what was once grandeur, they gasp on their sides, or stack crazily on high, looking like the aftereffect of some timeless carnage.”                                                                                               

Submitted By Karen Hines

 Missouri, in 1903, Walker Evans took up photography in 1928. He is best known for his work in the 1930’s documenting the effects of the Great Depression in photographs he took for the Farm Security Administration  (FSA). Although the image above is not part of his work with the FSA, he clearly could not resist the sight of junk cars as a symbol of the Great Depression. Here he   deviates from his road trip documenting sharecroppers and turns to a field in    rural Pennsylvania discovers perilous times have reached everywhere, as he   captures a landscape vista of the mechanized era. A barren field lying in waiting through a season of rest for a new crop has become an auto graveyard              instead.  By depicting the fate of these lifeless automobiles during an era of  hardship he transfers almost human qualities to them, suggesting the fate of the owners and makers of these cars is probably not much different. As a young man, Evans spent a summer working in an automobile factory as a lesson in earning money and the value of work. Much later, in April 1962, Evans authors an article titled, “The Auto Junkyard,” for Fortune Magazine, in which he reflects on the lifespan of a car, describing the scrap yard as a parody of the showroom.           He describes rusted shells being scavenged and picked over for a second chance at life, with parts being swapped and sold in a process of disassembly that         reversed Henry Ford's famed assembly lines. He wrote, “…these obscene       perversities leer out of the countryside almost anywhere, often in the middle of idyllic rural spots. …Agonized travesties of what was once grandeur, they gasp on their sides, or stack crazily on high, looking like the aftereffect of some    timeless carnage.”                                                                                                Submitted By Karen Hines