Walker Evans
1936
Penny Picture Display, Savannah

Gelatin silver print
24.7 x 19.3 cm (9 3/4 x 7 5/8 in)
 
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987 (1987.1100.482)
 
© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
 
Curatorial description
 
This picture is a composite portrait of a slice of society. It represents the window display of an anonymous portrait photographer in the South during the Depression. He was evidently not much of an artist but was good at pinching pennies, eager for business, and proud of his trade. On each of his large negatives he managed to make fifteen individual portraits. He thought most exposures good enough to use in this advertising display but covered his occasional failures with more successful images cut from other contact sheets.
 
For an analysis of this photograph: Juliet Hacking (ed.), 2012, Photography: The Whole Story, (Prestel), pp. 286-287
 
LL/6364