Interior Detail, West Virginia Coal Miner's House

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Images(3)

Artist/Maker Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)

Date1935, printed later

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 9 5/16 × 7 7/16 in. (23.7 × 18.9 cm) Sheet: 9 15/16 in. × 8 in. (25.2 × 20.3 cm)

Credit LineGift of William E. Williams, Class of 1973, in memory of Silvia Saunders

Object number2005.2.1

Not on view

DescriptionHaving had early ambitions to become a writer, Walker Evans took up photography only as an adult, in 1928. With the support of friends, his photographs soon appeared in Lincoln Kirstein’s literary journal Hound and Horn and Carleton Beals’s book The Crime of Cuba. In June 1935, Evans began working first for the Resettlement Administration and then for the renamed Farm Security Administration established as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal program, traveling around the country to record the effects of the Great Depression—work he continued through early 1937. Thereafter, he became one of the foremost American photographers and played an important role in developing what is today called “documentary” photography. Even though Evans shot Interior Detail, West Virginia Coal Miner’s House in the first month of his tenure with the Resettlement Administration, his distinctive style is already evident. Using an 8-by-10-inch view camera on a tripod, which could capture extreme detail, he photographed his subject straight on, with a seeming lack of emotional content. The resulting image depicts an interior in company-owned housing at one of the coal mining camps at Scotts Run, near Morgantown; the walls are patched or insulated with cardboard and advertisements, whose offers of hope and satisfaction are at odds with their surroundings. The extreme poverty at Scotts Run—home, at that point, to fifteen thousand unemployed miners and their families—is said to have helped inspire the New Deal legislation. (SOURCE: Alcauskas, INNOVATIVE APPROACHES, HONORED TRADITIONS, 2017)

Collections

Additional Details

Exhibition History 2017
Clinton, NY (Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton College). "Innovative Approaches, Honored Traditions: The Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Five Years, Highlights from the Permanent Collection," September 9 - December 10, 2017 (cat. no. 75, illus.);

2006
Clinton, NY (Fred L. Emerson Gallery, Hamilton College). "Works by WPA Artists from the Collection of the Emerson Gallery," September 22 - December 30, 2006 (cat. no. 5, illus., 10) [installed in conjunction with the exhibition "WPA Artists: Prints from the Amity Art Foundation"];

2005
Clinton, NY (Fred L. Emerson Gallery, Hamilton College). "Hamilton Collects, A Century of Curiosities: The Story of the Hamilton College Collection," September 29 - December 30, 2005 (unnumbered cat., illus., 34).

Provenance 2005: Hamilton College (Fred L. Emerson Gallery), by gift of William E. Williams;
1972 - 2005: William E. Williams, aquired by purchase from the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Markings Stamp: "Reproduced from the collection of the Library of Congress" on verso at upper center in black ink.

Published References Katherine D. Alcauskas, INNOVATIVE APPROACHES, HONORED TRADITIONS: THE RUTH AND ELMER WELLIN MUSEUM OF ART AT FIVE YEARS, HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE PERMANENT COLLECTION (Clinton, NY: Wellin Museum of Art, 2017), p. 176;

A CENTURY OF CURIOSITIES: THE STORY OF THE HAMILTON COLLEGE COLLECTION (exh. cat., Emerson Gallery, Hamilton College, September 29- December 30, 2005, unnumbered cat.).

Signature Not signed.

Inscribed "13785 [underlined] / 895" on verso at upper right in pencil.