IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN

LOCATIONS /FIGURES

Walker Evans was Staff Photographer at FORTUNE from 1945 to 1965. There is an excellent account of the relationship in WALKER EVANS AT FORTUNE, Wellesley College Museum, 1977/8, by Lesley Baier. She interviewed Max Gschwind who, aside from his masterly visualisations of science and structure, was assistant art director. Evans' earliest appearence was The Communist Party, September 1934, see above. His celebrated project that became Let Us Now Praise famous Men, began as a FORTUNE assignment with James Agee who also had contributed to the magazine. After work on location, Evans developed on his own layouts. Despite Evans' claims to Cummings. Baier notes that after 1954, he did work on the layout of some of the portfolios with Ronald Campbell. Working with different sized photocopies of the intended images, he tweaked and teased to get the exact reading. It was widely known that at times Evans would trim his negatives to render a fait accompli.

PAUL CUMMINGS: What about 1943 when you joined the Time-Life complex and then went to Fortune two years later? Did you there have enough freedom? Or were you given specific assignments?
WALKER EVANS: I had to fight for it. But in a way I accepted that as a challenge. I had to use my wits there. And I think I did all right. I think I won in the long run. I was very pleased with that because that’s a hard place to win from. That’s a deadly place really, and ghastly. I can’t tell you how horrible that is, that organization.
PAUL CUMMINGS: In what way?
WALKER EVANS: Well, it’s insidiously corrupt and its values are a hundred percent the opposite of what any aesthetic or idealistic mind can ever conceive. But it’s hypocritical; they do not admit that. And they play in a horribly dishonest and corrupt way this other game. You know that. The history of “Life” you know, the psychology of Henry Luce all comes from that. It’s a very one-man organization.
PAUL CUMMINGS: You did a number of portfolios for them?
WALKER EVANS: Yes, I did indeed. And they were mine too. I conceived those and executed them.
PAUL CUMMINGS: Did you work on a kind of straight basis or full time or free lance? Was it a regular job?
WALKER EVANS: Yes, I was hired by the managing editor. And that’s important. I saw to that so I could go over the head of the arts department. There was no art director for me. I just ignored them, all of them. I would go to management with my ideas, never telling the art department about it. They were furious about that. But that was what saved me.
PAUL CUMMINGS: That must have given you a lot of conflict with the art department?
WALKER EVANS: Oh, it did! They hated me. My God, Leone (Lionni) could kill me. But he was a very clever man and knew he shouldn’t fight with me. He just ignored the whole thing. He knew that I was ignoring him so he was going to ignore me.
PAUL CUMMINGS: Are there any of those portfolios that stand out to you as being especially successful or rewarding from your point of view?
WALKER EVANS: Oh, yes. Sure. I’m very pleased with some of them.
PAUL CUMMINGS: Which ones?
WALKER EVANS: Oh. Well, some of them are not even my photography at all. I love the two postcard ones; they’re purely mine. You probably never saw them. Vintage postcards…………………

PAUL CUMMINGS: But one thing we didn’t really get into is the portfolios and things that you did for Fortune which you said you initiated.
WALKER EVANS: Some I would. I was in a good position there to go to the editors, bring ideas and put them directly up, going beyond and over the heads of the art director and the art department because I was hired by the management, not by the art department. And then they made me an associate editor anyway so I was in a position to write and have ideas and execute them.
PAUL CUMMINGS: So you did the whole - ?
WALKER EVANS: Yes. By “excuse” I mean I didn’t do this with every idea. But if I had a good idea and I managed to persuade the editors to do it then first of all, I would conceive it, photograph it, write it, edit it, and lay it out and present it done, written and laid out and photographed. So it gave me a sense that I was doing something there that was my own.
PAUL CUMMINGS: You just didn’t get fed into the mill?
WALKER EVANS: No. That didn’t go for everything I did. Every once in a while I would get caught up in that big machinery there. They would need something and I was there and they were paying me and I thought I’d do it. I never did anything that I thought was degrading, but I did things that I didn’t want to do every once in a while.
PAUL CUMMINGS: You’ve never used – or have you used very few of those photographs in you exhibitions?
WALKER EVANS: I’ve used quite a lot. And overflow, too. You see, if I went off on a trip for Fortune I had a wonderful time. I would make lots and lots of photographs and with their knowledge could have these things. I didn’t do anything with them to speak of. I certainly wasn’t allowed to compete with them. But, for example, putting them in exhibitions was something they rather liked. I’d do that every once in a while. Or in books. But I didn’t compete. I wouldn’t say, take a Fortune spread and put it in Look, or anything like that. I never did that.
PAUL CUMMINGS: I was always curious why you had never gotten involved in any other kind of photo activities or anything. You know, you never –
WALKER EVANS: I’m not a joiner or an involved man. Instinctively and temperamentally I don’t do that sort of thing.
PAUL CUMMINGS: Do you think that working for Fortune had an influence on how you took photographs or how you saw things?
WALKER EVANS: No. I think it sort of kept me alive, kept my hand in. Really there was a duality there that was a little sad and a little embarrassing as its worst; and that is that I don’t think they quite knew how to use me. There was some good will on their part, some on mine; some ill will, too. But in general I wasn’t very happy. But I don’t think any artist in this country is very professionally happy. I consider myself lucky to be able to make a decent living. But they didn’t really make what I would call really creative or intelligent use of me. I think they realize it more and more now. It’s the fault of that kind of system of group journalism and the group mind. And also Luce’s fundamental direction and ends were not mine at all.
PAUL CUMMINGS: But yet you stayed there for a long time, didn’t you?
WALKER EVANS: Yes. Well, you know, it was a kind of civilized place within its framework. Of course, inside and outside the Luce organization has its insidious and even sinister side. But it’s such a large thing for very bright people and you can find places in there that are habitable.
PAUL CUMMINGS: So it gave you a kind of base.

Oral history interview with Walker Evans, 1971 Oct. 13-Dec. 23, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

ROY STRYKER: Well, Walker is a staff member of Fortune, with a very interesting assignment, which is -- he's called an editor. He goes out and does special photographic assignments. I don't know how much he does editing inside of it but he's done -- if look through the old copies of Fortune you'll see some quite remarkable picture series.
RICHARD DOUD: This is Walker Evans?

ROY STRYKER: Yes. Remarkable series. Still showing the same old competence, still showing his discerning eye. A series he did on the railroads, on the locomotives, in which he shot the close-ups of the drive mechanism; the beautiful sequence he did in on the old buildings -- the continuation of an early love of his, which was at Saratoga; he went back up and did some of the material up there. You'll see that Walker Evans is still, in his way, continuing his 8 x 10 camera perception, if I may use that strange phrase, of the world about him.

: Oral history interview with Roy Emerson Stryker, 1963-1965, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

WHAT SHOULD FORTUNE PHOTOGRAPHS DO?

"The picture is quiet and true. Since I am writing about photography let me point out that this picture is a better part of the story at hand than either a drawing or a painting would be. There is a profitable and well-run cracker firm in a sweaty part of the town, there is a knot of men talking on the pavement about anything but crackers, amidst the irrelevant trucks. This is where Mal-o-Mars are cooked and this is where last week's newspaper meets the gutter too. And the Strand Hotel becomes famous for flavour. My point is Fortune photographs should take a long look at a subject, get into it, and without shouting, tell a lot about it." to R.D. Paine, 23.7.48 (Walker Evans at Work).

June 1948, Jerry Cooke at Nabisco