McNair Evans

Teaches at Los Angeles Center of Photography

Photographer McNair Evans grew up in a small farming town in North Carolina, and worked summers repairing cross-ties and railroad track on a 32-mile freight line. He discovered photography as an anthropology student at Davidson College (BA, 2001) while recording the oral history for an Appalachian family in Madison County, NC.

McNair’s work explores themes of shared experiences and identity by photographing the American cultural landscape amidst forces of modernization, with sharp focus on those individuals most impacted by these changes. His work presents personal, sometimes autobiographical, subject matter in unconventional narrative form, and has been recognized for its literary character and metaphoric use of light.

His photographs are held in major public and private collections, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and his work has been featured in numerous exhibition settings and editorial publications including Harper’s Magazine, The New Yorker, and on the cover of William Faulkner’s novel, Flags in the Dust. McNair Evans is a nationally exhibited artist, 2016 Guggenheim Fellow, an active guest lecturer at universities and institutions nationwide.