Walker Evans: The Interview

with Leslie George Katz

Introductory text and notes by Anne Bertrand, afterword by Jerry L. Thompson

2019

In 1971, Art in America published an interview with Walker Evans conducted by Leslie George Katz, writer and publisher of the Eakins Press. The interview is charming and illuminating in its clarity and candor. Nearing the end of his life, Evans speaks freely about his influences and how he got started as a photographer (“I was damn well going to be an artist and I wasn’t going to be a businessman,” he remembers), and reflects on his work and his thinking. The interview has become legendary, consulted by curators, scholars and students for half a century and considered a definitive source for insights into the process, philosophy and personality of one of America’s greatest photographers.

In 1995, the Eakins Press Foundation republished Evans’ interview in a deluxe clothbound edition titled Walker Evans Incognito. More than 20 years later, this new edition brings the Evans interview back into print in an elegant and affordable volume for a new generation. Walker Evans scholar Anne Bertrand introduces the interview and its publication history, and contributes notes throughout the text that provide important contextual information. Walker Evans: The Interview offers an opportunity to rediscover the man behind the famous images, in his own words.