Barber Shop Interior, Atlanta, Georgia

Peter Sekaer

1936 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

Sekaer became interested in photography in the early 1930s while enrolled at the New York Art Student’s League. He studied with Berenice Abbott and met Walker Evans through their mutual friend the painter and photographer Ben Shahn. In 1936 Sekaer accompanied Evans on a tour of the American South for the Resettlement Administration, a New Deal agency. Of his photographs from this period, Sekaer wrote, “It is self-evident that they are honest pictures of real people and their lives,—more than casual ‘candid’ shots,—more than mere newsreel views. . . . A vital relation to contemporary life such as one feels in these pictures has always been an essential factor of any great art expression.” Here barbers pose behind their chairs and acknowledge Sekaer’s camera. The photograph offers a glimpse into a business that played a central role in community life for African American men living in the segregated South.

Artist

Peter Sekaer

Date

1936

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Fund, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2014