Interview by Leslie George Katz
Much sought and widely appreciated, but previously unavailable except in books of collected essays, the interview that is the text of Walker Evans Incognito is a true, first-hand source: Evans speaking freely about his photography and his philosophy. From Evans' own words the personality of the man behind the great, famously laconic photographs emerges. Walker Evans Incognito gives this brilliant text the grand presentation it deserves.
The book is 16 inches high by 11.5 inches wide with eight scrupulously reproduced full-page photographs. Each photograph is accompanied by Evans' own comments on that picture. The text of the interview and the captions are printed in letterpress. Bound in buckram, with a tipped-on tri-tone photograph and mylar protective cover, the edition of the book is limited to a single printing of 2,500 copies.
Penny Picture Display, Savannah, 1936
"The only reason this photograph has any value is, an instinct is touched in it. 'This is for me.' It's like the meaning of a person. The singular importance of this spoke to me that way. It's uproariously funny, and very touching and very sad and very human. Documentary, very real, very complex. All these people had composed in front of the local studio camera, and I bring my camera, and they all pose again together for me. That's a fabulous fact. I look at it and think, and think, and think about all those people. It was made in the thirties, in Savannah."
Part of Phillipsburg, New Jersey, 1935
"This is a very American view--the charm of it is in the ugliness and craziness of the architecture of different periods there together. Look at the quite handsome, charming building down front. While to the left is a ridiculous house with a crenellated castle on it. The first is honest, the second is not honest; both are American."