Walker Evans
[Shell Detail]

[Shell Detail]

© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

[Shell Detail]
[Shell Detail]
ArtistAmerican, 1903–1975
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • [Shell Detail]
Datec. 1930
PlaceUnited States
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 6 7/16 × 4 1/8 in. (16.4 × 10.5 cm)
Sheet: 6 7/16 × 4 1/8 in. (16.4 × 10.5 cm)
Credit LineGift of Mrs. Efrem Kurtz
Object number2000.286
Non exposé

Explore Further

Department
Photography
Object Type
Description


Walker Evans, who is best known for his studies of American vernacular scenes—roadside cafes, advertisements, shops, and main streets—used his characteristic sharp, straight photographic style in this series, a multi-dimensional study of one sea shell. The result of Evans’s stylistic approach, applied to a singular object rather than the architecture of a storefront, is a more ambiguous, intriguing, and abstract image.



Provenance[Lunn Ltd., New York, April 1988]; Mrs. Efrem Kurtz; given to MFAH, 2000.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
verso bottom left corner in pencil "#4"
verso lower center a stamp "Walker Evans" above two rectangular boxes inscribed in pencil "XXI", "44v" / "c.1930"

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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