Photographer Walker Evans emerged into the world of artistic photography during the late 1920s and helped define it for the next decade and more. Evans was among the first to find striking subject matter in the lives of ordinary citizens and buildings. Thomas Nau’s biography of this innovative artist documents Evans’ growth and development as an artist as he refined his understanding of the kinds of photos he wanted to take. During the Depression, Evans accompanied writer James Agee across the south to document the lives of tenant farmers. One of the photographs he took, of a girl named Lucille Burroughs (mistakenly identified as Louise in this volume) will be recognizable to many children and teens today: it is the photograph on the cover of Karen Hesse’s Newberry-award-winning novel Out of the Dust. Evans hit some difficult times in later decades, but in the mid–1960s he reemerged with new ideas about photography and subjects that intrigued him. Nau’s volume examines Evans’ life chronologically through defining periods in his development and expression as an artist. His engaging narrative is enhanced by crisp reproductions of Walker’s photographs. (Age 10 and older)

Determined to "capture life has he saw it," Walker Evans (1903-1975) became one of the great photographers of the twentieth century, shooting in the New York City subways as well as the American heartland. His subjects included posters, billboards, and the Brooklyn Bridge--but he is best known for the stirring photographs he took of farmers during the Great Depression. This handsome volume offers a clearly written account of the legendary photographer's life and a verbal and visual portrait of the turbulent times in which he lived, illustrated with over 80 sumptuous duotone reproductions of his work.