Fire Ruins

Artist Walker Evans (American, 1903 - 1975)

Date1930

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage and sheet: 7 7/8 × 5 15/16 inches (20 × 15.08 cm)
Mount: 17 1/2 × 14 3/4 inches (44.45 × 37.47 cm)

Credit LineGift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Object number2005.27.3957

SignedSigned on mount recto, lower right, in pencil: "Walker Evans"

InscribedDated on mount recto, lower left, in pencil: "1930"

MarkingsOn mount verso, top, in pencil: "16-2-72"; On mount verso, upper right, in pencil: "$250"

On View

Not on view

Collections

Photography

Terms

DescriptionImage of the burned remains of a building structure. A vine grows on the building in the lower left corner of the frame.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Rotation 9. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, October 20, 2010 – March 13, 2011, no cat.

Gallery Label

Walker Evans was one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. His work reveals two essential qualities: a devotion to common, everyday subjects and an austere, unemotional mode of vision. Through his rigorous artistic intelligence, Evans’ simple subjects are transformed into complex emblems of human existence. Characteristically, this image—though devoid of people—powerfully evokes a sense of human presence and loss in the charred remains of a ruined structure.

Provenance

E. G. Gallery, Kansas City, MO;
Purchased from E. G. Gallery by Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, MO, 1972;
Given by Hallmark Cards, Inc. to The Nelson-Atkins Musuem of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2005.

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