The Metropolitan Museum of Art will open the Walker Evans Archive, one of the most complete single-artist archives of the 20th century, as a special research center devoted to the American photographer Walker Evans (1903-1975), on February 1, 2000. Acquired in 1994 by the Museum's Department of Photographs, the Walker Evans Archive includes Evans's black-and-white negatives, color transparencies, and motion-picture film from the late 1920s to the 1970s; the artist's original manuscripts, diaries, correspondence, and audiotape recordings of interviews and lectures; and his personal library and collections. This extraordinary trove will provide artists and scholars with a rare insight not only into the artistic achievement of Walker Evans, but also into the cultural, intellectual, and personal context of his career. The opening of the Archive coincides with the premiere of Walker Evans, the Museum's retrospective exhibition of the photographer's work, on view from February 1 through May 14, 2000.
