Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard

(NYTimes) - Nothing comes from nowhere, least of all art. Every body of work has its points of origin, its logic of personal urgency and cultural impetus, the coordinates of which are often found in an artist’s childhood.
Sometimes the logic eludes us. Sometimes we can piece it together through intuition, scholarship or the clues an artist leaves behind. Occasionally a skeleton key is passed down that explains more than was ever thought possible. Such was the case with van Gogh’s letters, and in its own way, with “Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Continued

Photo: View of Easton, Pennsylvania, on the Lehigh River by Walker Evans (Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress)