Kitchen Wall, Alabama Farmstead

Walker Evans, Kitchen Wall, Alabama Farmstead, 1936, printed 1974, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Lee and Maria Friedlander, 2006.13.1.8
Copied Walker Evans, Kitchen Wall, Alabama Farmstead, 1936, printed 1974, gelatin silver print, sheet and image: 9 3⁄8 x 12 in. (23.9 x 30.5 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Lee and Maria Friedlander, 2006.13.1.8

Artwork Details

Title
Kitchen Wall, Alabama Farmstead
Artist
Printers
Publisher
Double Elephant Press
Date
1936, printed 1974
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
sheet and image: 9 3⁄8 x 12 in. (23.9 x 30.5 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Lee and Maria Friedlander
Mediums Description
gelatin silver print
Classifications
Subjects
  • Architecture Interior — domestic — kitchen
  • Landscape — Alabama
  • Architecture — farm
Object Number
2006.13.1.8
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2006.13.1.8

Artwork Description

During the summer of 1936, Walker Evans joined writer James Agee in rural Alabama to work on a magazine assignment on cotton farming. Evans and Agee met with three tenant farm families and documented details of their experiences. The result, which the magazine declined to publish, was released as the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men in 1941. It contains some of the most iconic and contentious photographs to document the Great Depression.
Kitchen Wall, Alabama Farmstead reads like a modern novel. Every crack in the wood, every speck of paint tells part of the story. Evans drew special attention to the scarcity of cooking tools at the family’s disposal. These everyday utensils provide a metaphor for the struggle to meet basic needs.

A Democracy of Images: Photographs from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2013