Roadside Stand, Vicinity Birmingham, Alabama

1936
(American, 1903–1975)
Image: 19 x 23.7 cm (7 1/2 x 9 5/16 in.); Matted: 40.6 x 50.8 cm (16 x 20 in.)
© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location: not on view

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Description

This image reflects Evans’s fascination with vernacular architecture and handmade signs, which he collected. It is an urbane version of a penny postcard, a work with humor but also sophistication. Evans confounds the perspective we expect to see. Instead of objects receding into space, there are flat layers that resemble a stage set: the boys holding watermelons in the foreground, the men and curtsying girl in the middle ground, and the truncated figure in white occupying center stage in the extreme background. They all perform, providing a semicomic but true-to-life vision of roadside America.
Roadside Stand, Vicinity Birmingham, Alabama

Roadside Stand, Vicinity Birmingham, Alabama

1936

Walker Evans

(American, 1903–1975)
America, 20th century

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