Walker Evans, Paul Graham and George Shaw all relate to each other through the strategy and mechanism of modernist sensibilities. Modernist sensibilities arguably afford us a welcome break from postmodern irony.

Walker Evans embodies the sensibility of American modernism. For example Evan's photograph of Allie Mae Burroughs taken in 1936 reveals the sensitivity of her situation as it oscillates between estrangement and endearment, or as Lincoln Kirstein describes this paradox, "tender cruelty". 

Alabama Tenant Farmer Wife, Walker Evans, (1936)

By documenting the depression era in an objective way it not only allows the viewer to engage with the image by trying to respond to it through interpretation, but also provides valuable documentation of what life was like during the great depression in America. This crisis began in August of 1929, when the United States economy first went into an economic downfall,although it was not until the Wall Street Crash of October, 1929 that the affects of a declining economy were felt, and a major economic downturn ensued. The market crash marked the beginning of a decade of high unemployment, poverty, low profits, deflation, plunging farm incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth and personal advancement (http://history1900s.about.com).

During the great depression Walker Evans' worked for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) documenting the effects the great depression had on the lives of various people, and by doing so achieved his goal as a photographer to create images that are "literate, authoritative, transcendent" in their own right (http://en.wikipedia.org).

The use of documentation in Walker Evans' work relates to Paul Graham's contemporary work as he also documents aspects of society in relation to economic forces and his work also arguably demonstrates modernist sensibilities. For example in Paul Graham's series of photos "Beyond Caring" (1984), Graham took photos of people in various welfare centres across the UK during the peak of Thatcher's premiership. Margaret Thatcher was the longest serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century and is the only woman to have held the office. Her political philosophy and economic policies emphasised deregulation (particularly of the financial-sector), flexible labour markets, the privatisation of state owned companies, and the reduction of power and influence of trade unions (http://en.wikipedia.org).

Just like Walker Evan's photographs from the great depression, Graham has documented consequences of job losses and lack of prospects during Margaret Thatcher's reign of power, "the unique qualities of photography are its struggle to deal with time and life. Sometimes I think those are our materials. Not film, not paper, not prints: time and life" (photo quotation.com).

Beyond Caring, Paul Graham (1984-5)

George Shaw's work shares the modernist sensibilities of the work of Paul Graham and Walker Evans. However, he doesn't document the everyday in the same way. Instead he uses nostalgia for the everyday to create his paintings that document areas of Coventry the town he grew up in as a child. The artist uses Humbrol enamel paint to reignite what it was like for him when he was a child growing up. By painting derelict environments such as his painting The Back that use to be The Front (2008), he depicts the struggle of people facing the hardship in a non-romanticised way, using a kind of harsh nostalgia, which relates to the theme of "tender cruelty" as used by Evans and Graham but documents the everyday in a different medium. His paintings also link to modernism with the use of flat planes of colour. In terms of both tone and mood and abstraction, his paintings can be seen to resemble the paintings of Mark Rothko.

Shaws' paintings are focused on the Tile Hill suburb of Coventry and focus on environments which are communicated to the viewer through an emptiness and absence of human life in unremarkable, everyday buildings and scenes.

The Back that use to be The Front, George Shaw (2008)

Overall, considering all three artists, it can be seen that they all take inspiration from the everyday to create work about the struggle of people facing hardship within the everyday in a non-romanticised way. George Shaw uses nostalgia as well as the challenging realism of Graham and Evans.

In terms of my personal focus on quotidian humour, if there is any humour in any of these pieces of work, it is very subtle and black, therefore it is appropriate that these artists are not considered to be entirely relevant to my focus.