FASCINATING INSIGHT INTO THE CREATIVE PROCESS: MATERIALS FROM THE PAPERS OF WALKER EVANS, SIGNED BY PHOTOGRAPHER PETER TURNLEY

(EVANS, Walker) ROSENHEIM, Jeff L. and EKLUND, Douglas. Unclassified: A Walker Evans Anthology. Zurich: Scalo, (2000). Quarto, original maroon paper-covered boards, original dust jacket. $250.

First edition of this presentation of “mostly unpublished materials from the Walker Evans Archive, the vast collection of negatives and papers acquired in 1994 by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” From the library of award-winning photojournalist Peter Turnley.

“It is difficult to know now with certainty whether Walker Evans recorded the America of his youth, or invented it” (John Szarkowski). In 1938 Walker Evans was the first photographer to have a solo exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, revolutionizing photography’s documentary role, and ultimately reconfiguring the photo-essay into “a complex, elliptical, hugely ambitious work.” This volume commemorates that ground-breaking exhibition by publishing a superb selection of materials collected by Evans over the years. “Evans left to posterity an amazingly rich record of his creative process and inner life. From his earliest boyhood snapshots to the seldom-seen color Polaroids made in the year before his death, Unclassified traces the development of this American master.” See Roth, 98; Parr & Badger I:114; Open Book, 128. From the collection of Peter Turnley, acclaimed photojournalist for Newsweek, Life and Harper’s Magazine, who has covered “almost every important international news event of the last 15 years” (New York Times). Gift inscription. Owner signature.

A fine copy, signed by Turnley.