Mishal Mustafa

Prof. Youens

HUN192

10/23/2019

Evans Response Paper

In 1933, Evans went to Cuba on task for the publisher of dynamic crusader Carleton

Beals' then-pending book, The Crime of Cuba. He was to record the conditions under the tyrant

Gerardo Machado. Beals and his publishers likely needed symbolism created with feeling and

intended to summon shock at the states of poor people. Evans, as of now to some degree a non-

traditionalist, went for something progressively unobtrusive: narrating that was more journalistic

and less unmistakably stubborn than that of his partners. It is as if he is a voyeur, capturing the

reality of people as if other don’t see him.

From the exhibition, I picked three photographs that Evans had captured. Havana Citizen

is a photograph of an elaborately dressed man, wearing his white suit and hat. He seems to be

caught staring at something, with what seems like anger and discontent. The man is

photographed near posters and others reading newspapers. He may be standing in the middle of

the city, looking on to the dreads that have been gifted to him by the President.

In Women and Children, there is a woman holding her baby, with her two other children

sleeping the floor. They are most likely homeless, covered in grime and soot. Their clothes are al

dirty, and the two boys sleeping on the pavement, in front of what looks like a house, are only

wearing shirts, the rest of them in the nude. The woman facial features are extremely prominent,
her cheekbones showing, which seems as they haven’t eaten properly in days. She seems to be

carrying the child in her arms, staring into the distance, as if thinking about how terrible things

have been for her. She seems to have no where to go, living on the streets with her three children.

Perhaps she is sitting in front of a government officials’ office, hoping to receive some sort of

help. Evans is capturing the helplessness of the people in Cuba to show the world what it is that

they are going through.

The third photograph I picked is Untitled, Sleeping Man, in which a man is sleeping on a

public bench. This man also seems to be homeless, wearing old clothes, covered in dirt to a point

where the clothes seem to look black at some areas. Next to the man, there is another figure,

which is facing in the opposite direction, whose clothes are not only dirty but ripped as well. In

the far-right corner, a child is also in captured in the photograph. He seems to staring into the

direction of the camera, holding, what could be his lunch for the day. This child is also minutely

dressed.

Evans has a gift for capturing people as they are in the midst of something. It is those

types of photographs that have a heavy effect on the viewer. Evans captured the reality of the

people of Cuba so purely, showing the world the effects of a dictatorship. These three images

were a strong feature in showing these effects. In Havana Citizen, the man may have been fully

dressed, but he had the same contempt on his face that the woman in Women and Children had,

along with the look on the sleeping mans face in Untitled, Sleeping Man. Each of Evans images

has a story of its own to tell.