cover image The Last Years of Walker Evans: A First-Hand Account by Jerry L. Thompson

The Last Years of Walker Evans: A First-Hand Account by Jerry L. Thompson

Jerry L. Thompson. Thames & Hudson, $24.95 (127pp) ISBN 978-0-500-54210-1

Thompson, a close friend to Walker Evans (1903-1975) in the last four years of his life, has become a valuable source on the American photographer. Known for his essay in the 1982 Walker Evans at Work, Thompson here presents more of his recollections, fleshing out information on Evans's working habits with details on the shape (or shapelessness) of the famed photographer's final days. Although the book adds little of substance to the literature on Evans's life and work, it nonetheless provides a sensitive portrait of one of America's most popular photographers in the throes of old age. ""Die knowing something,"" Evans wrote in mid-life. Yet, Thompson reveals how little his professional idol knew about old age. Ill-prepared financially, in rapidly deteriorating health, separated--and eventually divorced--from his second wife, he relied increasingly on his Yale University graduate students for companionship. Most poignantly, Thompson isolates the sources of Evans's frustration, especially the physical frailties that robbed him of his capacity to photograph. The book's previously unpublished Polaroid photographs by Evans--no match for his best work--will probably interest only scholars. But the writing is lovely, other photographs of and by Evans are arresting and Thompson's critiques of Evans's work are a pleasure to read. Ultimately, the text reveals much about old age broadly, especially its need for friendships and the leavening force of wit. 35 illustrations. (Nov.)