Curator, Smooth Nzewi: This image is part of a portfolio that the artist Walker Evans produced for MoMA in the context of the Negro Art exhibition of 1935.
Evans was invited to take photographs for MoMA of the over 600 objects featured in the show. He was quite aware that he wasn’t just invited to take photos for documentation purposes. Of course, that was part of it, but even more so, it was sort of the educational goals, of using them to teach African art history to an American audience.
It was one of the first attempts to read African objects as artistic as opposed to ethnographic objects. Part of that great achievement of shifting the meaning associated with African forms was the level of respect and detail that Evans brought to bear while he photographed the objects. He allowed the volume to show by making the background very shallow, such that the object itself jumps out, giving it the full treatment as an art object.
Evans was best known for the work he did documenting the effects of the Great Depression. He gave dignity to everyday people, and one can say that he extends that kind of approach to African objects.