Art & culture
Walker Evans’s changing portraits of Allie Mae Burroughs
Four nearly similar portraits reveal how sequencing and publication changed the meaning of one sitter’s face.
Walker Evans photographed Allie Mae Burroughs during the 1936 Hale County project he made with writer James Agee. The Metropolitan Museum notes that four portraits share a similar composition but show different expressions, and that two books selected different frames.
Four expressions in one setting
Evans made the pictures against the rear wall of the Burroughs family cabin in Alabama. The family leased its home, land, mule and tools from a landlord, and the museum describes their sharecropping arrangement and debt.
Small changes in head tilt, mouth and eyes distinguish the four images. The camera’s repeated position makes those differences unusually visible; the sequence lets viewers see how a person’s expression changes without changing the setting.
Evidence: Museum collection record
Publication selected different versions
For American Photographs in 1938, Evans chose a negative showing Allie Mae as more content and accessible. For Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, he used a more closed expression that readers later associated with the book’s mood.
The museum’s comparison shows that photographic meaning is not only made at exposure. Editors and photographers choose among near-identical frames, and the chosen image can influence how a person is remembered.
Evidence: Museum collection record
A lesson in portrait sequence
A portrait sequence preserves alternatives that one “definitive” image conceals. When possible, consult contact sheets, neighboring frames and caption records before assuming that a famous portrait was the only exposure or a neutral choice.
That idea is close to booth-strip viewing, where adjacent frames disclose small shifts in expression. Evans’s work was made in a documentary project with unequal power and later editorial control, so the comparison should remain about sequence rather than shared circumstance.
Evidence: Museum collection record
Sources & further reading
Sources for the specific facts and product descriptions above. Our worked examples, interpretations and practical suggestions are original editorial guidance.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Walker Evans, Alabama Tenant Farmer WifeMuseum collection record