Waitress, Garrick Club, London

Description

Called by a New York Times critic “the most famous unknown photographer in America,” Evelyn Hofer explored the relationships between people and their environment in a series of photo books devoted to various cities in Europe and America. She was especially noted for her keen ability to capture her sitters’ bearing, expression, and dress in a way that revealed the subtle imprint of class, labor, and place on them. This work, made for her 1962 book London Perceived, shows a mature waitress standing proudly but with a certain tentativeness behind her beautifully set table in London’s oldest “gentlemen’s club,” which remains exclusively male today.