Subway Portrait 1938 - 1941

Editor: This is Walker Evans' "Subway Portrait," taken sometime between 1938 and 1941. It's a gelatin silver print showing two women on what I assume is a subway car. The contrast is striking, almost stark, and they both seem very serious. What's your perspective on this photograph? Curator: I see it as a fascinating document of labor and materiality, intersecting with class. Evans was, of course, embedded within a very specific historical moment of documentary photography supported by institutions. The production of this image, a ‘candid’ shot achieved with a hidden camera, speaks to ideas about truth and objectivity during the Depression. Editor: So the very act of taking the picture, and *how* he took it, matters? Curator: Precisely. Consider the gelatin silver print itself. It was a relatively new and accessible medium, impacting the wide consumption of photographic images, changing how people understood reality. The means of photographic reproduction shifted who had access and control over image-making. Editor: It’s interesting how the material—the photographic print itself—speaks to accessibility but the subjects' clothing perhaps reveals class distinctions. Curator: Indeed. The women’s hats, for instance, were commodities available within a developing consumer culture, signaling a particular aspiration. But were they mass-produced or custom-made? Those kinds of details indicate different tiers of consumption and access within that culture. Evans’ work becomes a social register. Editor: I never thought about photographs in that way before, considering not just what’s *in* them but *how* they were made and what materials were used, and what that means. Thank you! Curator: It changes our view of art, and life itself. Thanks.