Walker Evans Rolleiflex outfit

Set of three Rolleiflex cameras, owned and used by the famous U.S. photographer Walker Evans. The outfit includes a Rolleiflex E no.1663337, a Tele-Rolleiflex no.S2302105 and Rolleiflex Wide no.W2491107. All three in excellent condition and in perfect working order. Walker Evans used these three cameras until late 1973 when he began to use a Polaroid SX-70 almost exclusively. Though he continued to use other cameras, the Rolleiflexes were the cameras he used most often, both for his work for magazines and personal work. He updated his equipment over the years; the three Rolleiflex cameras were among the last ones he owned. Provenance: a personal and professional assistant of Mr. Evans who received these cameras as a gift. Also included in this lot is the Walker Evans biography book written by James R. Mellow, the warranty card from 1959 filled by Evans and mentioning the offered Rolleiflex and instructions. E. Walker Evans (1903-1975) was an American photographer and photojournalist. He is widely acknowledged as one of the most important photographers of the twentieth century and worked primarily in the U.S. His enormous artistic influence has been recognized not only there, but also internationally. He is best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA), documenting the effects of the Great Depression on the rural population in the Mid 1930s. The portraits of the three families: Fields, Borroughs and Tingle became icons of photography history. After 1945, Evans photographed, among others, American urban landscapes and industrial buildings for magazines like Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Architectural Forum, Life and Fortune. Because of his documentary style, he is considered the forerunner of the German photographer couple Bernd and Hilla Becher. In 1938 the MoMa organized the first exhibition for a single photographer for Walker Evans: American Photographs. Since then, many of his works have been in permanent collections of museums or have been the subject of retrospectives at institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the George Eastman Museum, the Centre Pompidou, or, most notably at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and at the J. Paul Getty Museum in California, USA.