Walker Evans: The Getty Museum Collection

Even readers who know photographer Walker Evans's work will find much new in this catalogue of the Getty Museum's complete Evans collection in Malibu, Calif. Containing 1054 duotone and 31 color illustrations, the book includes familiar pictures such as those of Alabama tenant farmers made in the 1920s, as well as much that is unfamiliar; e.g., his images of trailers, wildlife, road scenes, tourists and the circus from Florida's west coast in the early 1940s, or the carefully composed Polaroid studies made shortly before his death at age 71 in 1975. Also included are teeming pictures of Cuba taken in 1933, his documentary studies of African tribal art and the Deep South in the 1940s. In her thoughtful accompanying essay, Getty associate curator Keller follows the continuity of Evans's major motifs-signs, ``found'' objects, anonymous portraits, local architecture-from his earliest New York City street scenes of the late 1920s throughout his career, making this an invaluable resource for devotees of Evans. (Nov.)