JOHN T. HILL, author “Walker Evans –The Hungry Eye, handwritten letter/60 words in ink hand-signed, 25 May 97

[WALKER EVANS PHOTOGRAPHER ASSOCIATION; JOHN T. HILL BIOGRAPHER SIGNED LETTER] JOHN T. HILL, author "Walker Evans –The Hungry Eye, handwritten letter/60 words in ink hand-signed, 25 May 97, 3-1/2" x10-1/2" (narrow strip) with envelope with stamped return address Bethany, Connecticut, with enclosures to the author James Mellow in Clinton, CT, about a Walker Evans photograph unknown to Hill, "curiosity from the STRAND…puzzling size…4-1/4 x 3 inches…must have been from the '30s…to be collected by J. L. [Julien Levy]", three enclosures (a) 2 pages, cover page of exhibition catalog "The Photographs from the Julien Levy Collection, The Witkin Galley" with photocopy of the small-size Walker Evans photograph with the caption "Walker Evans, untitled, n. d., 4-1/4 x 3 inches", photograph of Victorian-style parlor; (b) 1 page, another photograph from the Julien Levy Collection exhibition of shabby carousel horses presumably by Walker Evans, but no caption and not listed; (c) 3 pages photocopies from the catalog, 2-page interview with Levy and 1-page from the listings of the exhibition photographs listing 5 Walker Evans photographs, with the first the one John T. Hill writes to Mellow about cataloged "interior of house"; one-of-a-kind item with associations of different artists; NOTES: JOHN T. HILL, b. 1934, a working photographer and designer while teaching photography and design at Yale for many years, executor of Walker Evans' estate; JAMES R. MELLOW, 1928-97, American art critic and biographer…author of a biography on Gertrude Stein. From 1980 to 1992, Mellow published following biographies on major American authors including F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway…Mellow was working on a biography of Walker Evans when he died in 1997, and the book was published posthumously. (wikipedia); JULIEN LEVY, 1906-81, The Witkin Gallery exhibition highlighted Julien Levy's collection of photographs starting in 1927. Before this exhibition, Levy was most known as a dealer and collector who had given Max Ernst, Salvador Dali, and others their first shows in New York City. Besides Walker Evans, the Witkin exhibition contained photographs by Bernice Abbott, Eugène Atget, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Imogen Cummingham, Lee Miller, and Man Ray. (Art Institute Chicago website); PROVENANCE: acquired at an estate sale for James Mellow at his Clinton, CT, home; CONDITION: fine, limited handling, folds for mailing in envelope.