From mid-July to mid-September 1936, Evans took a leave from his position as an information specialist for the Historical Section of the Resettlement Administration to work with the writer James Agee on an assignment for Fortune magazine. They traveled to the Deep South to prepare an article on tenant cotton farming. In Alabama they documented the lives of farmers, including the Fields family. Evans found in this average American household the archetypal portrait of the everyman that he treasured. The straight-forward style of this portrait emphasizes the family’s hard life as much as their pride.
| Title | Object Number | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Bed, Tenant Farmhouse, Hale County, Alabama / Floyd Burrough's Bedroom, Hale County, Alabama | 84.XM.956.350 | 106H8E |
| [Two Mules, Hale County, Alabama] | 84.XM.956.314 | 106H7P |
| Chicken Coop on Floyd Burroughs' Farm, Hale County, Alabama | 84.XM.956.326 | 106H7X |
| Washroom in the Dog Run of the Burroughs Home, Hale County, Alabama | 84.XM.956.335 | 106H87 |
| Allie Mae Burroughs, Wife of a Cotton Sharecropper, Hale County, Alabama | 84.XM.956.517 | 106HAK |
| Othel Lee (Squeakie) Burroughs, Hale County, Alabama | 84.XM.956.363 | 104A3C |
| [Gleanhill School House, Hale County, Alabama] | 84.XM.956.324 | 106H7W |
Exhibitions
Walker Evans: An Alabama Record, the J. Paul Getty Museum (Malibu), April 7–June 21, 1992; In Focus: The Portrait, the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center (Los Angeles), January 27–June 14, 2009.