The last time we talked about our new exhibition, Walker Evans: Carbon and Silver, we learned about Evans’ early artistic career and the beginning of his work for President Roosevelt’s Farm Security Administration. Today, let’s look at one of Evans’ most famous photos from his FSA work, Alabama Cotton Tenant Farmer’s Wife (Allie Mae Burroughs) (1936) and how curator John Hill has helped us to see her with a fresh perspective. Below is text by Hill and Jerry L. Thompson, Evans’ student and assistant:
Many of us recognize Allie Mae without looking closely at her. We don’t really scan the image for details, and we tend to think about her as we did the first few times, or first few dozen times, we saw her. We have seen Allie Mae, and Evans’ other FSA images, so often that we might say we recognize them rather than really look at them. However, through the process of scanning the negatives and printing the images on a large scale, details that we never noticed before became suddenly obvious, and refresh the image as if it were the first time we’ve seen it.Alabama Cotton Tenant Farmer’s Wife is shot in Evans’s signature straightforward and dispassionate style, yet it evokes depths of emotion and character. Posed against the weathered boards of her farmhouse, her powerful gaze and enigmatic expression convey both strength and weariness. As with many subjects that Evans knew would be of extraordinary interest, he made 4 exposures of the portrait. Only the one seen in this exhibition was made with “open flash fill.”
This deceptively simple portrait is one of Evans’ best-known and most powerful works. Much of that renown is due to his cool rendering and the distance he maintained in order to make a dispassionate, yet universal, record. These are the elements that set Evans’ work apart. John Hill’s new prints reinforce those elements.
This exhibition is made possible in part by The Lisette Model Foundation and The Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation, Inc.
Walker Evans: Carbon and Silver is on view through December 31, 2009.
Top: Alabama Cotton Tenant Farmer’s Wife (Allie Mae Burroughs) (1936)
Exhibitions may have a just few lenders or they have many, with lenders as close as the next town over or as far away as across country. For example, the current exhibition 
Let’s follow the path of a typical incoming exhibition loan at FAM: As soon as a shipping crate comes off the fine art shippers’ truck at our loading dock, it comes to the registrar’s office for safe keeping and to acclimate to the environment of the museum. All crates and the artwork they contain must continuously be in temperature and humidity controlled environments, and because of very slight changes during transport, it usually takes 24 hours for a safe transition from the environment of the truck to that of the museum. The crate is then moved to the exhibition gallery in which it will be unpacked. The empty crate is later stored in a holding area by the registrar’s office that has security, pest and environmental controls. During a busy exhibition season this holding area is lined to the ceiling with stacked crates and boxes! The artwork itself is thoroughly examined by the registrar for condition changes and has detailed pictures taken; each piece of artwork is given a temporary number and is entered along with all of its descriptive information into the museum’s collection database. Finally, the artwork is installed on the gallery wall along with a descriptive label. Of course, the entire process is done in reverse when it is time for the loan to go back to the lending institution.
The next time you visit an exhibition at FAM, keep in mind how much time and effort went into getting each and every piece of artwork here. It really is an amazing process. We certainly feel that it is well worth it…we hope that you agree!
Walker Evans: Carbon and Silver is organized by John Hill, who taught with Evans at the Yale School of Art and was the executor of his Estate. Hill presents a new perspective on Evans’ work by comparing photographs printed during Evans’ lifetime with contemporary ink-jet prints made from digital files, created from scans of original negatives. The enlarged ink-jet prints reveal intricate details that are less accessible in the earlier versions of the images on view, which include vintage gelatin silver prints, books and magazines.
Next time, we’ll go into even more detail on this fascinating exhibition. Can’t wait for more? Here are a couple of essays you may want to read: John Szarkowski's 
