Commissionedi n 1941 by wr i t e r Karl Bickel, Walker Evans traveled to Florida to take the photo­graphs that were published a year later i n Bickel's The Mangrove Coast. These photographs constitute a l i t t l e - k n o w n chapter i n Evans's long career. Pelicans, t ra i ler homes, dancing circus elephants f r o m the Bing l ing Bros, winter quarters i n Sarasota —the imagery Evans found i n Florida was far removed f r o m the Depression-era America w i t h which this master photographer is so often associated.

Walker Evans-. Floridabringstogether f i f ty- four of Evans's photo­graphs of Florida, accompanied by an essay by novelist Bobert Plunket, who lives i n Sarasota. Plunket's wry account of the human and geographic landscape of Florida provides a superb counterpoint to Evans's pho­tographs, revealing a side of Evans's career that may come as something of a surprise to many of his admirers.

F R O N T C O V E R : Trailer in

Camp. Sarasota: see page 56.

R A C K C O V E R : Three• Palms :

see page 53.

W

FloridaA L K E R E V A N S

With an essay byRobert Plunket

The J. Paul Getty Museum # Los Angeles

viii

Introduction:

Evans in Florida, 1941

L- ongtime newspaperman Karl

Bickel retired with his wife to Sarasota,

Florida, in 1985. Bickel had been presi-dent of what was then called United

Press Associations (nowUPI) from1938 to 1985, had written the bookJVeK;Empires: The Newspaper and the Radio

(1980), and, in 1983, had confidentiallyadvised Charles Lindbergh on how to

deal with the media during the ordeal ofhis son's kidnapping. In the quiet resort

town of Sarasota (population 8,000),Bickel quickly became a community

leader working toward economic as well

as cultural improvements. He also tookup the hobby of investigating the history

of the west coast of the state. The result

of his research was The Mangrove Coast:

The Story of the West Coast of Florida. It is

a book that ranges from the geology of

the region to the legends of its explorersto the author's personal reminiscencesabout favorite fishing trips.

The Mangrove Coast concerns astretch of the state along the Gulf of

Mexico described by Bickel as extending"from Ancolote Anchorage to SanibelKey and then tapering off from Sanibelsouthward to the distant mouth of theShark." Bickel declares that the attrac-tion of the Mangrove Coast is actually

to be found, not in its past, but "in itsintangibles: the gleam of white sand,the softness of southwest winds, pink

and turquoise sunsets, and the abidingsimplicity of its people."

It does seem strange that WalkerEvans (1908—1975), a photographer who

consistently maintained that he foundnature uninteresting, was selected to

provide illustrations for a book about

the historical myths and natural beauty

of the nation's vacationland, its south-ernmost state. But whatever the reasonsfor the offer, Evans was happy to acceptthe job of illustrating Bickel's book,which involved a six-week trip to Floridain 1941 and paid him a much-needed fee.

The Mangrove Coast appeared in1943 in a first edition that consisted ofBickel's text (with an epilogue writtenthat January reflecting the recent effectsof wartime on Florida's west coast), fol-lowed by a portfolio of thirty-two pho-tographs by Evans, introduced with hiscaptions. This group of pictures is pos-sibly the least known of Evans's pre-1945works and survives in very few 19408prints, most of them now located at theGetty Museum. Their importance hasbeen overshadowed by Evans's New Yorksubway series of the same period, butthey exhibit the photographer's eye inan equally exceptional way and, withmore exposure, should be accepted as asignificant phase in the development ofEvans's mature documentary style, com-

parable to his igSS work in Cuba and hisDepression-era pictures "from the field"for the Resettlement Administration.

The selection of Evans's Floridaphotographs presented here is accom-panied by an essay by novelist RobertPlunket, who lives in Sarasota. Mr.Plunket knows Florida intimately,and his wry assessment of the Bickel—Evans collaboration places theselittle-known photographs within thecolorful context of the Mangrove Coast.

Judith KellerAssociate CuratorDepartment of Photographs

A Technical Note

Walker Evans: Florida

contains fifty-four gelatin

silver photographs, a num-

ber of which were first pub-

lished in Karl Bickel's The

Mangrove Coast (1942).

All of the images were

selected from the Getty-

Museum's collection, the

largest holding of prints

made by Walker Evans him-

self. A few of the photo-

graphs have been slightly

cropped, and a very few

have been significantly

cropped. All of the pho-

tographs are reproduced in

their complete form, with

their dimensions and acces-

sion numbers, beginning on

page 64. Further information

about the prints, as well as

the entire Getty collection of

Evans's work, can be found

in my Walker Evans: The

Getty Museum Collection

(1995).J .K.

ix

It is not to be deniedthat full half o f th e

tourists and travellersthat come to Florida

return intensel ydisappointed, and

even disgusted.

Why?

— Harriet Beecher StowePalmetto Leaves. 1878

xi

Walker Evans, the Mangrove Coast, and Me

by Robert Plunket

Just about everyone in Sarasota does.For the past fifteen years I have beenone of the town's leading gossip col-umnists. I've covered everything fromcharity balls to the Mayor's PrayerBreakfast, from the high-school promto the opening night of the French FilmFestival, where Jeanne Moreau andAudrey Hepburn, dressed to the nines,vied for "best entrance." (Audrey won.)I've roasted politicians, I've emceedcharity auctions, I've modeled sports-wear to benefit the Humane Society.I've even interviewed Warren Burgerand Pia Zadora, although not at thesame time.

1C a l l m e M r . C h a t t e r b o x .

P A G E x i iTwo Giraffes, Circus Winter

Quarters, Sarasota

P A G E 3

Concrete Block Building with

Shell Decoration

And in doing so I've learned a lotabout Florida. It really is different downhere—the way it looks, the weather, thesocial patterns, the brand-newness ofthe place. Everybody comes from some-where else, which means he has secretsfrom his past back in Dayton, and in anumber of cases those secrets involveformer wives who disappeared undermysterious circumstances. An amazingnumber of people blow into town, makea splashy name for themselves, and thenare arrested. The buying and sellingof real estate is the dominant industry.Indeed, it could be said that the real-estate ad is the principal form of litera-ture here.

Even the art is different. True,there is much conventional art—paint-ings, performances, etc. But the reallyinteresting artistic endeavors are usual-ly disguised as something else —atheme park, a mystery novel, a coconut,even a simple vacation photograph.Walker Evans took many photographshere in 1941, but they are not, definitelynot, vacation photographs. They aresomething else entirely.

2

O P P O S I T E

Mystery Ship Roadside Bar

5IEvani first became interested in Walker

s because I am what you might calla biography freak. They are my favoriteform of reading. I haunt the "New Books"section at Selby Library at least oncea week, looking for the latest. I'll readanything, but I find myself most drawnto the lives of those tortured twentieth-century American writers, the oneswho smoke and drank too much andthen died young, thus becoming instantlegends. One thing I've noticed isthat in an astonishing number of thesebooks, the name Walker Evans keepspopping up.

Two of Evans's closest friends haveparticularly interested me. The first was

O P P O S I T E

Souvenir Shop Display

R I G H T

Racetrack Spectators

Hart Crane, one of the great poets ofthe twenties. Talk about intense: heworked on one poem for seven years—The Bridge—for which Evans took thefrontispiece photograph. Crane was abinge drinker and an indefatigablesailor-chaser, that is, until he sur-prised everyone by running off withMalcolm Cowley's wife. They went toMexico and moved in with KatherineAnne Porter. But on the way back,Crane had second thoughts and jumpedship, literally, leaping off the stern ofthe SS Orizaba and drowning just northof Havana.

James Agee was even stranger.His career was the triumph of the will.

7

Nobody wanted to be a great writermore that he. He published one verygood novel, A Death in the Family, moreor less to prove that he could, but heis best remembered for his collabo-ration with Evans, Let Us Now PraiseFamous Men, and his screenplay forThe African Queen. Like Crane he diedyoung, a heart attack in a taxicab.He was literally worn out by art. He wasone of the original "problem smokers";he had a bad heart but couldn't stophis constant intake of nicotine. Womenfound him very sexy in a Nicolas Cagesort of way, and as he is a biographer'sdream, there are quite a few booksabout him.

Evans is the mystery of the trio.One reason may be that he lacked theenergy of his friends. He was cool,passive, shy, more a voyeur than a partici-pant. Evans didn't wear his heart on hissleeve like Crane and Agee. He lovedpeople-watching, particularly when hecould do it in a reclining position. Todaythere are many artists like him—AndyWarhol and R. Crumb leap to mind—butWalker Evans was, back in the '3os and'408, ahead of his time, personality-wise.

An example: he embraced the com-mercial. Indeed, his career was oneof moving from job to job. Most of hismajor work resulted from becomingattached to a project initiated by some-

8

one else. The best known was, of course,Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. But therewere others as well; the book you'reholding in your hands is the result ofone of Evans's more exotic assignments,and just about the only one that couldbe described as fun.

It all began when Evans was con-tacted on behalf of a man named KarlBickel, who needed some photographsfor a book he was writing. Bickel hadrecently retired to Sarasota after a longand distinguished career in journalismthat started with his coverage of the SanFrancisco earthquake. He moved fromstrength to strength until he ended upas head of UPI.

He joined various civic boards andboosted the city. He led the drive tobuild a big pavilion out at Lido Beach,and his wife, Madira, is still remem-bered for her ironfisted rule of the localwomen's club. But they both had anintellectual side as well, and the historyof Florida became their specialty.Indeed, Madira rose to such promi-nence in the state historical societythat an ancient Indian midden, or pileof shells, is named in her honor up inTerra Ceia.

Karl decided to do her one better,though. He would write a book detail-ing the long and colorful history ofthe Gulf Coast of Florida, to be titledThe Mangrove Coast, after the ubiqui-tous plant that grows half-in and half-out of the water and covers much of

9

now, in his new home,

karl set out to become

sarasatas ideal citizen,the "active retiree."

L E F T

Two Men Fishing

O P P O S I T EShuffleboard Players

the shoreline. And he would get a first-rate photographer to supply the pic-tures. Walker Evans, who was, after all,the first photographer to be honoredwith an exhibit at the Museum of Mod-ern Art, sounded perfect.

With his Guggenheim money run-ning out (he'd received a fellowshipin 1940) and the release of Let Us NowPraise Famous Men so disappointing—thebook sold a mere six hundred copies —Evans must have been very happy withthe prospect of spending six weeks inFlorida, all expenses paid, just as coldwas settling in up North. Furthermoreit would be a free honeymoon: Evanshad just married Jane Smith Ninas, apainter. And so, in late October of 1941,the newlyweds set out for the west coastof Florida.

10

12If the phrase "west coast of Florida"is drawing a blank in your mind, don'tworry: even people on the east coast ofFlorida don't know much about it. Yougrow up on one coast and spend yourentire life there, without going to theother. One reason is the journey itself,an endless drive through swamp orsugarcane or cattle ranches. The onlyhuman settlements are migrant-workerand prison camps. The message is clear:behave, or you'll end up in the middleof the state.

No one denies that the east coastis more glamorous. It always has been.There was nothing quite as excitingas Miami Beach in the 19508, and now,in its new guise, the Beach is backon top, with all those hip models andno place to park. And Palm Beachhas always been one of the most glam-orous places in the world, a top-tencontender. Even Boca Raton, evenFt. Lauderdale. . . .

But Tampa?

L E F T

Cypress Swamp

13

Like any self-respecting

place with a similar parb-lem, the west coast concedes

glamour but insists thatit is more :real" In this case, "real" means

real old and real quiet, and with an

indigenous population that is real South-ern in thought and action and lifestyle(i.e., lots of pickup trucks with Confeder-ate flags). The economy centers around theretirement industry, and anyone underfifty is perceived as startlingly young.Though there are pockets of affluence(Naples and, near Sarasota, LongboatKey), the general atmosphere is middle-class Midwestern, with palm trees.

Keep in mind that the west coastof Florida is not the same thing as theGulf Coast. The Gulf Coast stretchesfrom Pensacola, at the Alabama bor-der, all the way south to the end ofthe mainland, just north of Key West.The west coast is the lower part of theGulf Coast, the part that faces west;up in the Panhandle, the land facessouth. These two parts of the GulfCoast, like the east and west coasts,have nothing to do with each otherand are, in fact, separated by anothernatural barrier. On the map it lookslike an enormous mangrove swamp.Whatever it is, it is impenetrable, andno one ever goes there.

16

P A G E 14

Auto Graveyard at Tampa

P A G E 1 5

Upstate Roadside Landscape

R I G H T

Fishermen in Sponge Boat,Tarpon Springs

O P P O S I T ESponge-Diver's Boat,Tarpon Springs

ll

The west coast, where Evans tookall his photographs, begins north ofTampa with a smattering of little towns,the most interesting of which is TarponSprings, where fifth-generation Greeksdive for sponges. Next comes Tampaitself. On the surface it seems to be alarge commercial center of no particu-lar interest, but the more you study it,the more it becomes very interestingindeed. Criminals on the lam are alwaysbeing caught in motels there, and a seri-ous devil-worship problem exists amongthe young; yet another claim to fame isthat it has the highest incidence of light-ning strikes in the country. St. Peters-burg, across the bay, functions as a glumBrooklyn to Tampa's Manhattan. It washere that a broken, barely middle-agedJack Kerouac drank himself to death inhis mother's house.

Heading south, we next encounterBradenton, an old Southern town famousas the home of Tropicana Orange Juice.

18

L E F T

Crowd Waiting at Street

Corner, Tampa

19

2,0

Then comes Sarasota, about which morelater, and then Venice, where retire-ment has become not just a lifestyle butthe lifestyle. (I once covered a partythere attended by, among others, twenty-seven people over the age of one hun-dred.) Ft. Myers is next; it is very large,over two hundred thousand inhabitants,but oddly out of the mainstream. I'veonly had occasion to go there once, andall I can remember is banyan trees andlots of traffic. Next comes Naples, whichis very opulent. Old money retires here,but it is smallish—population twenty-one thousand—and, as they say, "deadin the summer." South of Naples is aplace called Marco Island, crowded withvacation condos whose charm eludesme, and then.. . nothing.

O P P O S I T E

Men in the Street at Tampa

L E F T

Blind Couple

in Tampa City Square Hall

21

O P P O S I T E

Coastal Landscape

with Palms

If the west coast of floridaseems a little off the beatentrack now, just imagine

how isplated it must haveseemed back in 1941.

That was before air-conditioning andmosquito control. Roads were few andprimitive; much of the transportationwas by boat. When Charles and AnneLindbergh came for a visit, they packedas if for a safari.

But Sarasota was a happy exceptionto all this. It was world famous back inthose days, as the home of the RinglingBros, and Barnum & Bailey Circus, abeautiful, pristine little town of eightthousand—the undisputed star of the

west coast. It had thirty-five miles ofwhite-sand beaches and a cosmopolitanpopulation. The bars must have beengreat; people still talk about the oldPlaza, not to mention the M'Toto Room(named after a famous gorilla) at the ElVernona Hotel, where there were circusacts and dancing every night. Visitingcelebrities came through regularly. TheQueen of Iran showed up, plus WillRogers, and even Albert Einstein, whowas fitted with a truss at Badger's Drug

?3

34

Store on Main Street. The house wherehe stayed is still standing on South PolkDrive out on Lido Key, making Sarasotaone of the few places where we can trulysay we had "Einstein on the Beach."

Karl Bickel gave Evans carte blancheas to what to take pictures of, and it'snot surprising that the urbane photogra-pher, who bought his clothes at BrooksBrothers, decided to concentrate hisefforts on Sarasota. The road trips werefew and not very productive. (I wonderif Madira and her middens had any-thing to do with this.) A journey toTallahassee* yielded a single portraitof an antebellum mansion and a side-walk scene. Tampa and St. Pete regis-tered as group portraits of grim, elderlywomen. Only Tarpon Springs acquitteditself well: Evans loved the diving suit(p. 39) and the amateurish murals (pp.3o—3i), versions of which still decoratethe Tarpon Springs of today.

*Ralph Waldo Emerson, no less,described Tallahassee as "agrotesque place," settled by"office holders, speculators,and desperados." Even in1826, few writers were willingto give the west coast a break.

O P P O S I T E

Antebellum PlantationHouse at Tallahassee

L E F T

Negroes at Tallahassee

35

*6

38

P A G E 2 6

The Green Benches at

St. Petersburg

PAG E 27

Winter Resorters

P A G E 2 8

Winter Resorters

R I G H T

Sponge Diver's Suit,

Tarpon Springs

For his Sarasota photographs,Evans managed to capture the things thatwere unique to the town. First, of course,came the circus. Time after time he jour-neyed out to the east of town to visitthe Ringling circus winter quarters andphotograph the animals, the architec-ture, the railroad cars, and most ofall, the elaborate, hand-carved circuswagons that were used in countlessparades down the Main Streets ofcountless American towns.

29

P A G E S 3 0 — 3 1

Descriptive Painting by

a Sponge Diver

R I G H T

Caged Baboon, Circus

Winter Quarters

3s

It is hard for us to imagine the hold thecircus had on everyday life sixty or soyears ago. For many children, the day thecircus came to town was the high pointof the year.

The story of Sarasota and the cir-cus is a sad one, particularly becauseit began so happily. Back in the 19308John Ringling, the brains of the fiveRingling brothers, came to Sarasota fora vacation. He was immediately struckby the town's potential and began buy-ing up everything in sight, developingit, selling lots, laying out streets; hewas, quite literally, building a city.

The twentieth centuary has

killed off many things, but

its saddest casualty maywell be the circus. 33

R I G H T

Balcony Car, Circus Train,

Winter Quarters, Sarasota

34

L E F T

Ringling Bandwagon, Circus

Winter Quarters, Sarasota

P A G E S 3 6 - 3 7

Uninhabited Seaside

Residence in Sarasota

(Ca'd'Zan, formerly the

Ringling Residence)

35

36

He constructed a palace on the bay forhimself and his wife Mable and his col-lection of Old Masters and began workon a Ritz Garlton Hotel. In 1927 hemoved his entire operation here fromBridgeport, Connecticut (where, inter-estingly, Walker Evans also took pho-tographs in the '408—but that's anotherstory). Sarasota suddenly became uniquein the world: it was a one-industry town,and that industry was the circus.

For years it was a role that Sara-sota played proudly. In no time the win-ter quarters, with its menagerie andrehearsals open to the public in an out-door arena built to the exact specifica-tions of Madison Square Garden, becamethe biggest tourist attraction in thestate. It was the Disney World of its day.Tourists still show up looking for it. Andwhen the depression hit, the circusenabled the town to survive quite nicely.The performers put down roots here, asmuch as circus performers can, and fora small town in Florida, Sarasota devel-

oped quite an eclectic population mix.We had aerialists from Europe; we hadmidgets—for a time we had more ex-Munchkins than any place in the world;I used to see them in the supermarket,but sadly most have passed away. Andwe had the Ringlings themselves, withtheir mansions on the bay and theirDynasty-like struggles over control oftheir empire.

When Evans visited in 1941 thecircus was still in its glory days, andglorious they were. One small example:the elephants he photographed goingthrough their paces in the outdoorarena would, in a matter of weeks, beginwork on their new showstopper for the194? season. It was a "Circus Polka"with music commissioned especiallyfrom Igor Stravinsky, to be choreo-graphed by George Balanchine, withcostumes by Norman Bel Geddes.

B E L O W

Unfinished Boomtime HotelO P P O S I T ECircus Trainer withPerforming Elephant,Winter Quarters, Sarasota

38

The stars were Old Modoc, the greatcircus elephant buried somewhere in anunmarked grave in the Kensington Parksubdivision, and Vera Zorina, who wasthen Balanchine's wife. The New YorkTimes (April 10, 1942) pronounced it"breathtaking":

The cast included fifty ballet girls, all in

fluffy pink, and fifty dancing elephants.

They came into the ring in artificial, blue-

lighted dusk, first the little pink dancers,

then the great beasts. The little dancers

pirouetted into the three rings and the ele-

phant herds gravely swayed and nodded

rhythmically. The arc of sway widened and

the stomping picked up with the music.

In the central ring Modoc the Elephant

danced with amazing grace, and in time to

the tune, closing in perfect cadence with

the crashing finale. In the last dance fifty

elephants moved in an endless chain

around the great ring, trunk to tail, with

the little pink ballet girls in the blue twi-

light behind them. The ground shook with

the elephants' measured steps.

Just when things were getting reallybad and the circus needed every break itcould get, Sarasota ungratefully zonedit out of town. It seems that circus peo-ple live with an inordinate amount ofstrange equipment—gaudy trailers, wildanimals, trapeze rigging in the back-yard—and one by one all these necessi-ties were prohibited. They had becomea little embarrassing in a carnival,honky-tonk sort of way. Besides, thetown had found a new source of wealth:the retired Midwesterners who beganmoving here in the 19508.

O P P O S I T E

Two Circus Trainers with

Performing Elephants,

Winter Quarters, Sarasota

P A G E 4 2

Three Circus Train Cars,

Winter Quarters. .Sarasota

Televosion killed thecircus, But Sarasota, tits shame, helped out.

4io

4?

Even though Ringling Bros, leftin 1960, first moving to Venice, thento Tampa, Sarasota remains a circustown. Over a dozen smaller circuses areheadquartered here, though their per-formance schedules get smaller andsmaller with each passing year. Manyof the great circus families are still here,though most of the younger membershave left the business. My old neighborGunther Wallenda taught history atSarasota High. And Olympia Zacchini,the daughter of the first woman shotout of a cannon, is a prominent localartist. There is one Ringling left intown, Pat Ringling Buck. She is a gossipcolumnist just like me. Or she was.Now she's a critic.

43

P A G E 4 3

Man at Work on Circus

Wagon, Sarasota

R I G H T

Detail of Circus Wagon,

Sarasota

O P P O S I T E

Circus Winter Quarters,

Sarasota

44

But if the circus is but a shell of itsformer self, it has given Sarasota a his-tory of creative endeavor unparalleledin the world. This is the town where thefamous gag with all the clowns pilingout of the tiny car was invented. This iswhere Franz Unus lived, the man whocould stand on one finger. And thenthere were the elephants. What the NewYork Times didn't tell you about was anincident that occurred during a rehearsalat the winter quarters. Things weregoing fine until a sudden noise fright-ened the herd and they all took off enmasse, heading south. The image of adistraught George Balanchine chasinga herd of elephants, all clad in pinktutus, down Lockwood Ridge Road—that,to me, is Sarasota, and always will be.

P A G E 4 6

Circus Wagon (Calliope Car),

Winter Quarters, Sarasota

P A G E 4 7

Ringling Bandwagon, Circus

Winter Quarters, Sarasota

48 Afriend of mine, visiting Sara-sota for the first time, called it "pretty,but not that pretty." It is flat as a board.The vegetation is scrubby in some areas,tropical in others. There is nothing dra-matic or breathtaking about it; whenreal beauty takes over, it comes fromthe changing colors of the sky and water.

This was something Walker Evanswas not much interested in. He wasclearly an artist who did not fall victimto nature's charms. No wonder AnselAdams hated his work. The only naturalthing he really liked was driftwood,which at least he could collect. One caneven sense a certain hostility in hisphotographs of the Mangrove Coast's

L E F T

Inland Landscape

B E LOWPelican on a Dock

49

5°

beaches and swamps. The swamps I canunderstand; back in those days they werenot revered as fragile ecosystems, theywere the enemy—useless for any pur-pose whatsoever and full of dangerousthings like alligators. Many Floridiansstill look upon them this way, and notwithout reason. Alligators, reveling in abig comeback from their endangered-species status, are making off with chil-dren and small dogs at an alarming rate.At one retirement community they havea volunteer alligator patrol during poo-dle-walking hours.

live here for any length of time, thepelican becomes about as interesting asthe squirrel. Seabirds have a down-side—they are vicious, stubborn, andgreedy. They are always getting caughtin hooks and fishing lines and thenbeing rushed to the Pelican Man's BirdSanctuary, one of the town's morepopular charities.

I can forgive the swamps. I canforgive the pelicans, who do, after all,mate for life. But I really wish he hadtried a little harder with the beaches.They are, after all, our bread and but-ter. One of them even won a Best Sandin the World contest. They can holdtheir own with any resort in the world.

The World is a poorer place

for not gaving a walkerEvens phatograph of a live

alligater: they were his kind

of animal. Instead, he fell for the pelican. If you

51

5*

True, the water does tend to be a littletepid and calm and bathtub-like, par-ticularly in August, and they are erodingat an appalling rate. But they remain thetown's pride and joy, not to mention alittle gold mine.

But where are they? All we get areseveral shots of misshapen palm treesgrowing much too close to the waterline.Where is the Lido Casino, the gloriousArt Deco beach pavilion championedby his host, Mr. Bickel, but sadly torndown in the 19608? Where are the paletourists, the tots with pails, the shellcollectors?

AppareentlyEvens justwasnt a neach

erson.p

P A G E 51

Two Pelicans on a Dock

O P P O S I T E

Pelican

L E F T

Three Palms

B E L O WGulf of Mexico

54

enthusiasm for trailers matches mine,but I think that Evans may well be thatperson, my imaginary trailer friend, soto speak.

For years I've been trying to getpeople to pay attention to these fasci-nating things, but it's clear that they arejust not going to. That's one of the rea-sons it's so hard to do research abouttrailers. There's been nothing writtenabout them. And it doesn't look like thesituation is about to change. I've beenshopping around my coffee-table book,Trailer Style, for years, without a nibble.People just don't get it.

But I have the feeling that theywere right up Evans's alley. Imagine:a little metal house that moves. Howcould you not be fascinated?

But if he didnt likethe beach, he certainly

liked trailers. I've yet to meet another person whose

56

How I would love to show Evans afew of my favorite trailer parks: placeslike Mel-Mar Village up in Bradenton.Here the trailers are in what I call the"Toaster Style," which clearly caughtEvans's eye, too [opposite page]. Every-where you look there are long-forgottennames: First Lady, Pine Tree, Pal, Flame,and New Moon. Clearly Mel-Mar Villagebelongs to the Classic Period.

Or rather the Early Classic Period.Windmill Village North—not to be con-fused with Windmill Village South—isLate Classic. Here the look is 1959. Theshape is larger, squarer. Gone is any pre-tense that these things can move. Porchessprout, plus carports. Bay windows appear,and if you're lucky, you may even get fins.

And yes, there is a windmill. Ittowers over the place, housing the club-house in its base, with the pool rightin front. And the streets are namedafter Dutch cheeses. A good dose ofwell-done kitsch is always a plus in atrailer park; no one knew this betterthan Evans.

Recently, when I was in-betweenhouses and had no place to live, I actu-ally got to spend three weeks in such apark. It was called Tropical Acres, andit was heaven. My trailer was a greatbig double-wide, with so much spacethat it had rooms I never even went in.(The only problem was a certain wobblewhen you walked from one end to theother.) My neighbors were the nicestpeople in the world. When my cat got lostthey organized into teams and combedthe park, looking under every trailerand even searching the sewage treatmentplant next door. My favorite neighborwas the guy right across the street. Histrailer was tiny, barely 8 by 13. He and

P A G E S 5 4 - 5 5

Recreational Vehicle with

Striped Canopy

O P P O S I T ETrailer in Camp, Sarasota

57

58

L E F T

Statuette of a Cherub

O P P O S I T E

Municipal Trailer Camp

his wife hauled it down each winter fromMichigan. In their minuscule front yardthey had a plaster goose, and each daythey would dress the goose in a differentoutfit. That goose had more clothes thanI did. If it was raining he wore his yellowslicker, but if it was sunny and bright, younever knew what he might have on, and itreached the point where I got out of bedin the morning just to see what the goosemight be wearing. My favorite outfit wasa gendarme's uniform, complete with alittle goose-sized cape. Something tellsme Evans would have been very inter-ested in this goose; whenever I thinkabout it, I can almost hear him yellingfrom beyond the grave: "Get the camera!"

6o

Ihe Mangrove Coast was publishedin 194? and was a big hit—except forthe pictures. They just didn't mesh withthe text. Bickel was dispensing popularhistory at its most eager-to-please, fullof "lore" about pirates and explorersand moonshiners. The photographssupplied by Evans were about some-thing else entirely. The two sat therein uneasy proximity as the first editionran its course, but for the second andsubsequent editions the photographswere dropped entirely.

I doubt that Evans minded much.Pearl Harbor was attacked while he andJane were walking on Siesta Beach; fromthen on, he, like everyone else, had a

different set of worries. He went toWashington to investigate war work butended up becoming a movie critic forTime. In 1948 he switched over to theart department at Fortune. It was duringhis tenure that Fortune achieved a levelof art direction and photography rarelyseen in a magazine. It could be arguedthat his cushy corporate job kept himfrom his art; in reality, it—like his Sara-sota assignment—became his art.

Evans would cross paths with theMangrove Coast again and again. Hissister and brother-in-law settled onAnna Maria, the barrier island justnorth of Longboat, and he would cometo visit often, usually to escape the

L E F T

Banyan Tree

61

6s

winter chill or to recover from the ill-nesses that plagued his later life. Butthere is no record that he kept up withthe Bickels or that he participated inthe life of Sarasota. It would have beenout of character if he had.

The Bickel house still stands, sud-denly back in the news as Sarasota'slatest controversy. There are plans todemolish it—it has been derelict andabandoned for over twenty years—inorder to widen the street in preparationfor a new Ritz Carlton Hotel, an eerieecho of John Ringling's earlier dream.The historical preservationists are upin arms as usual, but everyone suspectsthey will lose on this one, too. The cityhas already destroyed most of its past,usually after great civic debate and ago-nizing feelings of guilt.

But Sarasota remains a very luckytown. Over and over it has been touchedby genius. First there was Ringling andthe circus. Then came JohnD. MacDonald,the mystery novelist. For thirty years he

lived and wrote here, elevating the lowlymystery novel to art as he explored themoral dilemmas of that odd new culture,the Sun Belt.

And now we have these extraor-dinary photographs by Walker Evans,powerful evidence—Harriet BeecherStowe notwithstanding—that not every-one returns from Florida "intenselydisappointed, and even disgusted."They present a Florida that doesn't existanymore, and what a strange place itmust have been, so foreign looking, sohandmade. If they show anything, it isthat artificiality is many layers deep.And what better way to illustrate thisthan with pictures of a small town inFlorida where the circus is king, peli-cans fill the air, and the people live inlittle tin houses that they can movefrom place to place?

O P P O S I T E

Circus Building, Winter

Quarters, Sarasota

63

64

The Photograph s

Postcard Displa y19416 7 /i6x 5'/4. in .84.xM.956.874

P A G E i i

Circus Trainer Leadin g Elephant,Winter Quarters , Sarasota19416V.6X715/3Zin.84. XM. 956.94,1

P A G E i i i

Ruin Tabby Construction19417"/.6x 6 7/,6 in .84.XM.956.844

P A G E i v

Torn Ringlin g Brother s Poster19416 'Vsa x 8 V,6 in .84.XM.956.914

P A G E V

Resort Photographer at Work19416Y4x8 l 3 /16in.84.xM.956.948

P A G E i x

Woman with Car from"St. Petersburg Alligator Farm"19415 - V . 6 X 5 V , in.84.xM.956.938

P A G E X

Two Giraffes, Circu s WinterQuarters, Sarasota19415 '5 / l 6 x 3

7 A6in.84.XM.956.859

P A G E xi i

Concrete Block Building withShell Decoration19417x8 3 l /3 2 in .84.XM.956.871

P A G E 3

Mystery Ship Roadsid e Bar19416 < Vi6x7 3 l /3 a in .84.XM.956.986

P A G E 4

Souvenir Sho p Displa y19416'9/3, x 8 in .84.XM.956.985

P A G E 6

Racetrack Spectators19418 25/ 3 ax 3

7 A6in.84.XM.956.1076

P A G E 7

Two Men Fishing194159A6 x 4a'/33 in .84.XM.956.908

P A G E 1 O

Shuffleboard Player s1941

35S/3,X7 ' /3a in .

84.XM.956.913

P A G E 1 1

Cypress Swam p19419 x 6 5 / 8 in.84.XM.956.879

P A G E 1 3

Auto Graveyard a t Tampa194115 "A 6 x 7 3A6 in .84.XM.956.944

P A G E 1 4

Upstate Roadside Landscape19415 Vi6 x 6 '5/33 in .84.XM.956.987

P A G E 1 5

Fisherman in Sponge Boat ,Tarpon Spring s19416 a ' / 3 3 x6 3 A6in .84.^.956.855

P A G E l 6

Sponge-Diver's Boat ,Tarpon Spring s19416 3 /sx6V3,in.84.XM.956.929

P A G E 1 7

Crowd Waiting at Street Corner,Tampa1941SS/ax^Vsj in .84.XM.956.34,6

P A G E 1 9

Men in the Stree t at Tampa19416'/8 x 4is/i6 in .84.xM-956.934

P A G E 2 O

Blind Couple in Tampa CitySquare Hall19417 1 / , 6X7 I / 4 in .84-XM.956.814

P A G E 2 1

Coastal Landscape with Palm s19417 5 /8x9 Vi6 in .84.XM.956.919

P A G E 2 2

Antebellum Plantatio n Hous eat Tallahasse e19416 3 A6x6 l 3 /3 2 in .84.XM.956.923

P A G E 2 4

Negroes at Tallahasse e19416'57,6x6 in .84.XM.956.882

P A G E 2 5

65

66

The Green Benches at

St. Petersburg

1941

75/ ,6x6 3 Y3 2 in .

84.XM. 956.930

P A G E 2 6

Winter Resorters

1941

6s/8X7'9/ 3 2 in.

84.xM.956.939

P A G E 2 7

Winter Resorters194!

7 3 / , 6x 7 V8m.

84. XM. 956. 889

P A G E 2 8

Sponge Diver's Suit,

Tarpon Springs

1941

8 9/,6 x 6 '/4 in.

84. XM. 956. 868

P A G E 2 9

Descriptive Painting

by a Sponge Diver

1941

47/i6 x 79/166 in.

84. XM. 956. 873

P A G E S 3 0 — 3 1

Gaged Baboon,

Circus Winter Quarters

1941

6*9/3ax55/.6 in.

84.XM.956.885

P A G E 3 2

Balcony Car, Circus Train,

Winter Quarters, Sarasota

1941

7 5 /8x6 "7,6 in.

84.XM.956.946

P A G E 3 4

Ringling Bandwagon,

Circus Winter Quarters, Sarasota

1941

8 3 / 8x6 'Ain .

84^.956.875

P A G E 3 5

Uninhabited Seaside Residence in

Sarasota (Ca'd'Zan, formerly the

Ringling Residence)

1941

6 V 8 x 8 ?/8 in.

84.XM.956.827

P A G E S 3 6 - 3 7

Unfinished Boomtime Hotel

1941

4 l 3 /32x75/ l 6 in.

84.XM.956.867

PAGE 38

Circus Trainer with

Performing Elephant,

Winter Quarters, Sarasota

1941

6 "7,6x8 in.

84.XM.956.829

PAGE 3.9

Two Circus Trainers

with Performing Elephants,

Winter Quarters, Sarasota

1941

6 "7,6 x 8 '7/3a in.

84.XM.956.853

P A G E 4 O

Three Circus Train Cars,

Winter Quarters, Sarasota

(reversed printing)

1941

73 /16x815/16in.

84.XM.956.8o3

P A G E 4 2

Man at Work on Circus Wagon,

Sarasota

1941

823/32x6*3/32in.

84.XM.956.940

P A G E 4 3

Detail of Circus Wagon, Sarasota

1941

83 /4x5'5/ l 6 in.

84.XM.956.877

P A G E 4 4

Circus Winter Quarters,

Sarasota

194173 / ,6x87/3,in.

84.xM.956.943

P A G E 4 5

Circus Wagon (Calliope Car),

Winter Quarters, Sarasota

19415 l 3 A 6 x 9 ' / 8 i n .

84.xM.956.85i

P A G E 4 6

Ringling Bandwagon,

Circus Winter Quarters, Sarasota

1941

7 I 1 / , 6x6 a V3 2 i n .

84.XM.956.881

P A G E 4 7

Inland Landscape

1941

7 '5 /3 2 x6 3 / ,6 in .

84.XM.956.887

P A G E 49 L E F T

Pelican on a Dock

19418 x 6 V i 6 i n .

84.xM.956.876

P A G E 49 R I G H T

67

Two Pelicans on a Dock

1941

6 l c V3 2 x5 "/,6m.

84. XM. 956. 935

P A G E 5 1

Pelican

1941

7 1 / 4x5 1 / 4 in.

84. XM. 956. 860

P A G E 5 -2,

Three Palms

1941

8 '/3a x 6 V2 in.

84. XM. 956. 8l6

P A G E 58 L E F T

Gulf of Mexico

19415 '5/16x77/16 in.

84. XM. 956. 981

P A G E 58 R I G H T

Recreational Vehicle with

Striped Canopy

1941

53 /4x81 1 / ,6in.

84. XM. 956. 983

P A G E S 5 4 - 5 5

Trailer in Camp, Sarasota

1941

63 l/3,x6 l 3/3ain.

84.xM.956.945

P A G E 5 6

Statuette of a Cherub

1941

8V8X7 ' / , 6 in .

84.XM.956.930

P A G E 5 8

Municipal Trailer Camp

1941

6'/32 x 73/32 in.

84.XM.956.798

P A G E 5 9

Banyan Tree

1941

7 9/ l 6 x 5 5/ l 6 1 n.

84.XM.956.948

P A G E 61

Circus Building, Winter Quarte:

Sarasota

1941

6 2s/32 x 65/3. in.

84.xM.956.883

P A G E 6 2

68

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Evans, Walker, 1903—1975. Walker Evans: Florida / with an essay by Robert Plunket.

p. cm. ISBN 0-89236-566-8 1. Gulf Coast (Fla.)

Pictorial works. 2. Gulf Coast (Fla.) Description and travel. 3. Florida Pictorial works. 4. Florida —Description and travel. I. Plunket, Robert. II. Title. F317.G8E93 2000 975.9-dc2i 99-27279

CIP

© 2000 The J. Paul Getty Trust 1200 Getty Center Drive Suite 400 Los Angeles, California 90049-1681

www.getty.edu/publications

Publisher

Christopher Hudson Managing Editor Mark Greenberg

The J. Paul Getty Museum acknowledges the cooperation of The Walker Evans Archive at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Many of the photographs in this book are © Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Project Staff

Editor John Harris Designer Vickie Sawyer Karten Production Coordinator Suzanne Petralli Meilleur Photographers Charles Passela Ellen Rosenbery Photographic Technician Rebecca Vera-Martinez Cataloging Assistant 11, Deparment of Photographs Michael Hargraves

Printed by Gardner Lithograph Ruena Park, California

Bound by Roswell Book Bindery Phoenix, Arizona

t­

Map of Florida and line art from: Rorida: A Guide to the Southernmost State by the Fed­eral Writers' Project of the Work Projects Administration, edited by the State of Florida. Copyright 1989 by the State of Florida Dept. of Public Instruc tion. Used by permission of Oxford University Press, Inc.

F R O N T C O V E R : Trailer in Camp, Sarasota-, see page 56.

B A C K C O V E R : Three Palms-, see page 53.

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