Rare & Beautiful

Rare & Beautiful: How Walker Evans Read T.S. Eliot

An unassuming-looking book links two icons of 20th-century art

By Anne Quito, Superscript September 25, 2013

A touchstone for two titans of American modernism, Walker Evans’s personal copy of T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” testifies to the special connection between the photographer and the poet. Evans, the prodigious photographer of the Great Depression, aspired to be a writer and ardently admired Eliot, only turning to photography as a “left-hand hobby.” With the connection between writers and photographers clear in countless Designers & Books contributors’ lists, Anne Quito spoke to Heather O’Donnell of Honey & Wax Booksellers about this forgotten gem for the second installment of our “Rare & Beautiful” series.

Walker Evans’s personal copy of T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land.” The poem was first published in 1922

Anne Quito: Among all the extraordinary books in your shop, why did you single out this volume?
Heather O’Donnell: I like the book because Eliot and Evans are such influential figures in the history of American modernism, yet you don’t immediately think of the two of them as connected. On the book, Evans wrote, “New York/March 1926,” which dates his purchase of the book to the month before he left New York for Paris to try his hand at becoming a writer. But Evans had a hard time in Paris and struggled with writer’s block. In his writings, he confessed, “I’d done a lot of reading and I knew what writing was. And if I tried to do it, what I did was ludicrous and I threw it away and blushed.” He admired the modernists, including Eliot, and hoped to follow in their footsteps. I think it’s amazing how they’re linked through this single artifact.

AQ: How do you think Eliot influenced Evans’s work?
HO: For his first published images that appeared in Creative Arts in 1930, Evans borrowed a line from Eliot and captioned the final photograph "Hurry up please, it's time," the insistent last call of Eliot's bartender in "The Waste Land." Clearly, the reading of this book stayed with him. It’s notable how Evans pulls in this phantom from his literary past and makes Eliot a part of his first photo essay.

“Hurry up please, it’s time.” Evans borrowed a line from Eliot and used it as a caption for his first published photo essay, “Mr. Evans Records a City’s Scene." Photo: Lunchroom Window, New York. 1930 © Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

A page from Evans's copy of "The Waste Land"

AQ: Do you think there are similarities between Eliot’s and Evans’s artistic approach?
HO: Most people would probably say that there’s no common thread between their sensibilities. Evans is famous for these straightforward portraits and classically composed images—nothing tricky, no weird angles. Eliot, on the other hand is known for creating elaborate pastiches in his writing. "The Waste Land" is packed with quotations from the eastern and western tradition, lots of word play. But that said, I have to say that a lot of Eliot’s most memorable lines are the simplest: “To Carthage then I came. Burning burning burning burning… April is the cruelest month...” In the same token, Evans gives you a deceptively simple photograph but actually has command of the whole canon and history of composition. He created images of roadside gas stations that looked like Doric temples from the classical tradition.

Roadside Gas Station with Miners' Houses Across Street, Lewisburg, Alabama, 1935, © Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

AQ: Why do you think this book is overlooked?
HO: It’s often overlooked because it’s a small unassuming-looking book. It’s not necessarily the most visually stunning volume on the shelf. As a visually modest book, I think this makes it more special than some of the lavishly produced books out there because it has this singular, special provenance.

Heather O’Donnell is the founder of Honey & Wax Booksellers, a rare and antiquarian bookstore based in Brooklyn, New York. Its second catalogue featuring books with special provenance and association copies is forthcoming in October.

Rare & Beautiful: The World’s First Engraved Writing Book

The Man Who Designed Ulysses

comments powered by Disqus

Announcements

Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister

Now is Better

By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023

Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.

Order the book.

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future

By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022

Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.

Order the book.

Love Letter to a Garden by Debbie Millman

Love Letter to a Garden

By Debbie Millman
Contributions by Roxane Gay
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: April 15, 2025

From the award-winning artist, designer, and the host of the podcast Design Matters, Debbie Millman, this book tells the visual story of falling in love with gardening—and the philosophies that work conjures. Spread throughout are simple recipes using the garden’s ingredients from Millman’s wife, best-selling author Roxane Gay.

Order the book.

Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber

Milton Glaser: POP

By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023

This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.

Order the book.

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall

By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022

Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”

Order the book.

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)

By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023

This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.

Order the book.