How France Shaped Walker Evans’s American Vision – The New York Times

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How France Shaped Walker Evans’s American Vision

From grizzled cotton farmers to quiet small-town scenes of buildings and signs, Walker Evans built his reputation on chronicling America’s out-of-the-way places and people.

via Lens Blog: https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/how-france-shaped-walker-evanss-american-vision/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Multimedia&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs&region=Body

A turning point for Evans was his decision — like many young men of means — to go to Paris in 1926 to study for a year at the Sorbonne. His stay filled his head with ideas gleaned from Flaubert and Baudelaire, but it was another Frenchman — Eugène Atget — whose work affected him the most, leading to the dry, observational style that became his visual signature.