Hart Crane c. 1930

This is Walker Evans’ photograph of Hart Crane. The close-up and restricted tonal palette – all greys and browns – creates a sense of intimacy, yet also of distance. There's a real focus here on surface. You can see every pore on his skin, every hair. The texture is almost palpable, like you could reach out and feel the man's face. I love how photography can do that, capture the grit of reality in a way painting sometimes can’t. It's all about the light, how it hits the skin and creates these subtle shifts in tone. Look at the way the light caresses his nose, for example. It's sculptural. Evans’ work, like Crane’s poetry, is infused with melancholic beauty. Crane wasn't afraid to embrace ambiguity, and neither was Evans. In fact, you might compare it to the work of someone like Diane Arbus, who also had a knack for capturing the raw, unfiltered truth of her subjects. Art is a conversation, you know? A constant back-and-forth of ideas across time.