Fred Ricketts,
Cotton Tenant Farmer,
1936
Gelatin silver print 19.9 x 12.3 cm
(7-13/16x 4-27/32 in.)
84.XM.956.286

Twenty years after Sander immortalized three anonymous German farmers (pl. 159), Walker Evans traveled to Alabama with the writer James Agee to chronicle the lives of three American farm families. One farmer was given the name "Fred Ricketts" to protect his privacy and that of his family. As a tenant farmer, Ricketts was one rung on the social ladder above a sharecropper, who did not even own a mule. Evans's approach is to describe his subject with great objectivity. The harsh light falling from directly overhead places Fred Ricketts's eyes in deep shadow and accentuates the furrows of his prematurely wrinkled face. Shown here wearing a work shirt heavily soiled and frayed at the collar, the farmer was photographed by Evans using his highly flexible, handheld Leica camera that produced a miniature negative that was later cropped and enlarged to achieve the final composition.
(WALKER EVANS related to-->> 184, 168, 174, Japanese)

related: web site -->>
• Masters of Photography
• Photographs from the FSA and OWI
• New York Times: Eyes Wide Open
• Walker Evans Project