{"data": {"id": 325468, "accession_number": "2019.30", "share_license_status": "Copyrighted", "tombstone": "Circus Showbill, c. 1930. Walker Evans (American, 1903\u20131975). Gelatin silver print; image: 20.5 x 15.8 cm (8 1/16 x 6 1/4 in.); paper: 20.5 x 15.8 cm (8 1/16 x 6 1/4 in.); mounted: 21.9 x 17.4 cm (8 5/8 x 6 7/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Diann G. Mann and Thomas A. Mann, 2019.30", "current_location": null, "title": "Circus Showbill", "creation_date": "c. 1930", "creation_date_earliest": 1925, "creation_date_latest": 1935, "artists_tags": ["male"], "culture": ["America"], "technique": "gelatin silver print", "support_materials": [], "department": "Photography", "collection": "PH - American 1900-1950", "type": "Photograph", "measurements": "Image: 20.5 x 15.8 cm (8 1/16 x 6 1/4 in.); Paper: 20.5 x 15.8 cm (8 1/16 x 6 1/4 in.); Mounted: 21.9 x 17.4 cm (8 5/8 x 6 7/8 in.)", "dimensions": {"image": {"height": 0.205, "height_inch": 8, "height_inch_fraction": 0.0625, "width": 0.158, "width_inch": 6, "width_inch_fraction": 0.25}, "paper": {"height": 0.205, "height_inch": 8, "height_inch_fraction": 0.0625, "width": 0.158, "width_inch": 6, "width_inch_fraction": 0.25}, "mounted": {"height": 0.219, "height_inch": 8, "height_inch_fraction": 0.625, "width": 0.174, "width_inch": 6, "width_inch_fraction": 0.875}}, "state_of_the_work": null, "edition_of_the_work": null, "copyright": null, "inscriptions": [{"inscription": "Written in pencil on verso of mount: \u201cCircus showbill\u201d", "inscription_translation": null, "inscription_remark": null, "sortorder": null}, {"inscription": "Written in pencil on verso of mount: \u201c38.2 333/Evans/Walker Evans\u201d", "inscription_translation": null, "inscription_remark": null, "sortorder": null}], "exhibitions": {"current": [{"id": 393871, "title": "A New York Minute: Street Photography, 1920\u20131950", "description": "<i>A New York Minute: Street Photography, 1920\u20131950</i>. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 11-November 7, 2021).", "opening_date": "2021-07-10T04:00:00"}], "legacy": []}, "provenance": [{"description": "Sotheby's, New York, NY", "citations": [], "footnotes": [], "date": "May 6, 1987", "sortorder": 1}, {"description": "Thomas A. and Diann G. Mann, Palm Beach Gardens, FL", "citations": [], "footnotes": [], "date": "May 6, 1987", "sortorder": 2}, {"description": "the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH", "citations": [], "footnotes": [], "date": "March 4, 2019", "sortorder": 3}], "find_spot": null, "related_works": [], "former_accession_numbers": [], "did_you_know": "Walker Evans\u2019s father was an advertising executive.", "early_education_description": null, "artlens_description": null, "description": "Throughout his career, Walker Evans photographed billboards, signs, and posters\u2014both the large, commercially printed images in urban environments and the folksy, hand-painted signs in more rural areas. Evans\u2019s delight in this subject matter may be partly due to its inclusion in the cityscapes of his friend and photographic mentor Ralph Steiner, whose work is also represented in the museum\u2019s collection.", "external_resources": {"wikidata": ["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79875988"], "internet_archive": []}, "citations": [{"citation": "Mora, Gilles, and John T. Hill. Walker Evans: The Hungry Eye. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1993.", "page_number": "p. 307", "url": null}, {"citation": "Evans, Walker, Ellen Fleurov, Marian Hill, and Benjamin A. Hill. Walker Evans, Simple Secrets: Photographs from the Collection of Marian and Benjamin A. Hill. Atlanta, GA: High Museum of Art, 1997.", "page_number": "p. 45", "url": null}, {"citation": "Christie, Manson &amp; Woods International Inc. An American Journey: The Diann G. and Thomas A. Mann Collection of Photographic Masterworks. 2018.", "page_number": null, "url": null}], "url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/2019.30", "images": {}, "alternate_images": [], "creditline": "Gift of Diann G. Mann and Thomas A. Mann", "image_credit": null, "sketchfab_id": null, "sketchfab_url": null, "gallery_donor_text": null, "athena_id": 325468, "creators": [{"id": 122, "description": "Walker Evans (American, 1903\u20131975)", "extent": null, "qualifier": null, "role": "artist", "biography": "Walker Evans American, 1903-1975\r\n\r\nGreatly admired for his photographs of America during the Great Depression, Walker Evans (born in St. Louis) originally wanted to be a writer. He studied literature and languages at Phillips Academy in Massachusetts, then spent one year at Williams College. In 1926 he traveled to Paris, where he audited courses at the Sorbonne before moving to New York City in 1927. Over the next two years Evans developed a strong interest in photography, taking numerous pictures of New York. The unusual viewpoints and sharp angles of this early work reveal his awareness of contemporary European photography. Also influential was the work of Eug\u00e8ne Atget and Paul Strand, whose strong, direct style Evans admired.\r\n\tIn 1931 Evans undertook his first major photographic project in collaboration with Lincoln Kirstein: a series of photographs of New England architecture for a proposed book by architectural historian John Brooks Wheelwright. A selection of these photographs was later exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1933). From 1935 to early 1937, Evans worked for the Resettlement Administration (later known as the Farm Security Administration), documenting the effects of the depression. He spent most of his time traveling through the South, taking photographs in the clear, straightforward manner for which he became famous. His subjects ranged from rural farmers and miners to roadside architecture and main streets. In 1936 Evans took three weeks' leave from the fsa to work with writer James Agee on an illustrated article on tenant farm families for Fortune magazine. This collaborative project later appeared in book form as Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941).\r\n\tIn 1938 the Museum of Modern Art organized a major traveling exhibition of Evans's pictures, accompanied by the book American Photographs. Two years later Evans received the first of three fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1940, 1941, 1959). From 1943-45 he worked as a writer for Time magazine and from 1945-65 was on the staff of Fortune, producing numerous portfolios and photographic essays. Evans then moved to New Haven, Connecticut, to join the faculty of Yale University as professor of photography/graphic design; in 1974 he was named professor emeritus. M.M.", "name_in_original_language": null, "birth_year": "1903", "death_year": "1975", "use_in_caption": true, "include_extent": false, "weight": 1}], "legal_status": "accessioned", "accession_date": "2019-03-04T00:00:00-05:00", "sortable_date": 1925, "date_added_to_oa": null, "date_text": "c. 1930", "collapse_artists": false, "on_loan": false, "recently_acquired": false, "record_type": "object", "conservation_statement": null, "has_conservation_images": false, "cover_accession_number": null, "is_nazi_era_provenance": false, "impression": null, "alternate_titles": [], "is_highlight": false, "updated_at": "2026-05-01 06:54:01.211000"}}