The Marks of Man

Eighth of May 2011

Does Her Face Foretell Her Fate? By WILLIAM MEYERS Nothing holds our attention like a human face. So necessary is it for us to "read" faces that our brains evolved two separate neural systems specialized to help—one to recognize whose face it is, and the other to interpret its expression. It is therefore not surprising that when Stephen Pinson, the New York Public Library's curator of photography, set about organizing "Recollection," an exhibition up through Jan. 2 celebrating the 30th anniversary of the library's photography collection, he picked 95 portraits. Among them is Walker Evans's "Lucille Burroughs, Daughter of a Cotton Sharecropper. Hale County, Alabama" (1936). NYPL Photography Collection Walker Evans was assigned to document the effects of the Depression down South when he captured this photograph.Lucille was 10 years old when Evans took her picture. He was down South because he was being