Tenant Farmer's Wife, Alabama
Date1936
Mediumgelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 10 × 8 inches (25.4 × 20.3 cm)
Portfolio/SeriesFrom Ives-Sillman portfolio printed under Walker Evans’ supervision in 1971
Credit LineMuseum purchase with funds provided by the Gari Melchers Collectors' Society.
Object number2018.4
Copyright© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The images and text contained on this page are owned by Telfair Museums or used by the Museum with permission from the owners. Unauthorized reproduction, transmission or display of these materials is prohibited with the exception of items deemed “fair use” as defined by U.S. and international copyright laws.Label TextIn 1936, Walker Evans accompanied writer James Agee on an assignment by Fortune Magazine to document the lives of three white sharecropping families in Alabama. During that time, Evans occasionally stayed with Floyd Burroughs, his wife Allie Mae and their four children. Evans asked Allie Mae to pose for him against the weathered rear wall of their cabin and took four photographs of her with his large format 8 x 10 camera. Her straightforward gaze, furrowed brow, and pursed lips have become an iconic portrait of the plight of poor rural farmers in the Depression-era South. This particular image was featured in the publication that resulted from Agee and Evans’ work ̶ Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941).Subject MatterHale County, Alabama, United States of America
