The UBS Art Gallery

The images featured in Walker Evans: Carbon and Silver capture the essence of American life during the Great Depression, recording the stark landscape and impoverished lifestyle he encountered in rural towns and farms. Highlights of Evans’ work on view will include portraits, street scenes, landscapes, and images of businesses and homes that are evocative and mysterious.

Alabama Cotton Tenant Farmer’s Wife (1936) is shot in Evans’ straightforward and dispassionate style, yet it evokes depths of emotion and character. Posed against the weathered boards of her farmhouse, the woman’s powerful gaze and enigmatic expression convey both strength and weariness. The enlarged images in this exhibition will allow a closer look at some of Evans’ more intricate works, including Penny Picture Display, Savannah (1936), which depicts hundreds of wallet-size pictures displayed in a photography studio window.

Evans enjoyed exploring architectural details of homes, churches and shops, since he felt these spaces revealed the nature of their inhabitants. The spartan décor and shadowy corners of Farmer’s Kitchen, Hale County, Alabama (1936) has a quiet atmosphere. In contrast, Negro Barber Shop Interior, Atlanta (1936) is a dynamic image of a cluttered space, evoking a feeling of energy without the presence of customers. Another dynamic image, Roadside Stand near Birmingham (1936), features two boys proudly displaying watermelons at a fish market and farm stand with brightly painted signs promising “Honest Weights, Square Dealings.”

Evans did not regard his work as a form of social protest, but many of his images express the dark truths of the Great Depression in haunting and symbolic ways. Joe’s Auto Graveyard, Pennsylvania (1936), featuring a junkyard field filled with abandoned cars, has a profound sense of foreboding. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (1936), which shows mill workers’ homes located between the mills and the cemetery, expresses a confining sense of entrapment.

Walker Evans Alabama Cotton Tenant Farmer's Wife, 1936

Walker Evans Farmer's Kitchen, Hale County, Alabama, 1936

Walker Evans Negro Barber Shop Interior, Atlanta, 1936

Walker Evans Joe's Auto Graveyard, Pennsylvania, 1936

Walker Evans Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1936

Walker Evans Roadside Stand near Birmingham, 1936

Walker Evans Penny Picture Display, Savannah, 1936

The Yale University School of Art was founded in the 1860s, and graduated the first woman from Yale in 1869. As the oldest university affiliated art school in the country, the School of Art has had a rich history of joining the practice of studio art with the deep intellectual activity of a great research university. Since the 1950s, when Josef Albers was head of the School, it has educated a sizeable percentage of the notable artists of our time.

In 1964 Walker Evans was hired to teach in the School, and within a few years the photography program became a separate area of study, first under the direction of John Hill and then Tod Papageorge. Since its inception this small program, presently enrolling a total of nine students each year for a two-year Master's program, has produced important photographers unparalleled by any other photography program in the world.

UBS has a longstanding and ongoing commitment to the support of the arts and culture. UBS sponsors four exhibitions each year in The UBS Art Gallery, located in the lobby of its building at 1285 Avenue of the Americas, New York City. Through its exhibition program, the Gallery offers non-profit arts and cultural organizations a midtown Manhattan exhibition space and the opportunity to introduce their programs to a new audience. The UBS Art Gallery enables many institutions to organize and mount exhibitions that might not otherwise be seen. These exhibitions encourage interest in the arts among the hundreds of employees, clients and members of the general public who pass through the UBS building each day.

UBS also has its own art collection. Recognized internationally as one of the most important corporate collections of contemporary art, The UBS Art Collection comprises more than 900 paintings, photographs, drawings and sculptures by many of the world’s leading artists from 1950 to the present. UBS is proud of this heritage of collecting and embraces the Collection as a treasure to be shared with our employees, clients, shareholders and other individuals passionate about art through international loans and tours of selected works. To further share our Collection with the public, UBS provides permanent online access to works in the Collection, information on the artists and online exhibitions via an interactive web museum at www.ubs.com/artcollection.

UBS, one of the world's leading financial firms, is the largest wealth manager, a top tier investment banking and securities firm, a key asset manager and the leader in Swiss retail and commercial banking. Headquartered in Zurich and Basel, UBS employs more than 70,000 people and has offices in 50 countries. It is a Swiss public company listed on the SWX Swiss Stock Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). In the U.S., UBS is one of the biggest private client businesses with a client base of nearly 2 million private clients and approximately 7,500 financial advisors in over 350 offices.

Exhibitions at The UBS Art Gallery

Jardin Galerie: Children’s Art
November 30, 2006 – January 12, 2007

Mashantucket Pequot Museum: Gifts of the Forest, Native Traditions in Wood and Bark
January 25 – April 27, 2007

Mexican Cultural Institute: Mariana Yampolsky Photographs
May 10 – August 3, 2007


Hours and Admission
The UBS Art Gallery is located in the UBS Building at 1285 Avenue of the Americas (between 51st and 52nd Streets) in New York City. The Gallery is on the ground floor of the building and exhibition hours are Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. Admission is free.


**For recorded exhibition information: (212) 713-2885**