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Dock Worker, Havana
Dock Worker, Havana
Dock Worker, Havana

Dock Worker, Havana

Artist (American, 1903 - 1975)
Date1933 (printed 1971)
Mediumgelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 7 1/2 × 6 in. (19.1 × 15.2 cm)
Support: 8 1/4 × 6 1/2 in. (21 × 16.5 cm)
Mat: 19 1/2 × 16 1/2 in. (49.5 × 41.9 cm)
Frame: 19 1/2 × 16 1/2 × 3/4 in. (49.5 × 41.9 × 1.9 cm)
ClassificationsPhotograph
Credit LineGift of the Ives Family in memory of Norman S. and Constance T. Ives, 2016
Object number2016.21.1
DescriptionClose view of a man with a light-colored bristly beard and a shaggy moustache. He is wearing a button-front shirt and a cap with holes in it. His face and clothing appear to be stained with coal dust. He is holding a shovel and another tool with a long handle up near his head.
Text Entries
In 1933, Walker Evans traveled to Cuba to make photographs for a book by the radical journalist Carleton Beals. He took pictures primarily in Havana, capturing its landmarks, architecture and shop fronts but many of his images emphasize a culture of poverty that included breadlines, beggars, and workers in tattered clothing, such as this coal worker.  Evans took several photographs of coal workers that include this man.


After giving a lecture at Yale University in 1964, Evans began teaching there the following year as a professor of graphic design. He found a dynamic group of colleagues including Herbert Matter and Norman Seaton Ives. Ives worked with Evans to create a portfolio of his photographs issued in 1971, of which this photograph was a part (see object file for detailed publishing information and list of photographs included, all shot in the 1930s. Ives’s son Peter, who donated this print to the museum, said this was one of his favorite images by the artist.
In 1933, Walker Evans traveled to Cuba to make photographs for a book by the radical journalist Carleton Beals. He took pictures primarily in Havana, capturing its landmarks, architecture and shop fronts but many of his images emphasize a culture of poverty that included breadlines, beggars, and workers in tattered clothing, such as this coal worker.
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