The son of an affluent advertising executive, Walker Evans III was likely expected to follow in the successful business path of his father. However, acting against expectations proved to be more Evans’ style. He attended preparatory school at Andover and later studied at Williams College (Szarkowski). Although his studies gave him a love for literature, his performance was less than exemplary at both institutions. He dropped out of Williams after just one year to move to New York, and later recounted, “I don’t remember studying anything” (Mellow 34). In 1926, he traveled to Paris, where he studied French art and literature and worked as an auditor at the Sorbonne (Szarkowski). It was his experience in France that gave him “a perspective and a technique,” he claimed that he went on to apply in his photographic work in American (Mellow 45).
Though his interest in photography was sparked at a young age, Evans first significant photographs were done in 1928. He had recently returned to the states, full of distaste and bitterness for the American establishment (Szarkowski). He was blatantly anti-American based on the economic corruption and materialism he believed had consumed the nation at the time (Guimond 144). Essentially as an answer to his employment struggles, he obtained a small pocket camera and launched into the world of photography (Szarkowski). In doing so, Walker Evans had unwittingly begun a photographic career that would famously illustrate his view of a disjointed and corrupt Depression-Era America, while at the same time developing the art of photojournalism.
