YORK &8212; The Coleman Center for the Arts opened a new exhibit, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Photographs by Walker Evans from Hale County, on Oct. 5.

The new exhibit, on display until Nov. 4, depicts the life of three families of tenant farmers in depression-era Hale County.

The photographs are from the book &8220;Let Us Now Praise Famous Men&8221; by James Agee. Agee, along with Evans, spent most of the summer of 1936 living with the three families as part of the Farm Security Administration&8217;s photography project, which was spurred by President Roosevelt&8217;s New Deal. The pair lived with the families documenting their everyday lives in both text and still images.

The images have become some of the most well known in the history of photography.

The prints on display were printed in conjunction with the Coleman Center&8217;s workshop &8220;Working with Digital Files.&8221;

Downloaded as high-resolution files with permission from the Library of Congress Website, the class used the historic images as a means of teaching contemporary printing standards.

The exhibit presents what Agee called, &8220;&8230;an independent inquiry into certain normal predicaments of human divinity.&8221;

The exhibit, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Photographs by Walter Evans from Hale County, was made possible by funding from the Alabama State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Alabama Power Foundation, as well as generous contributions from individual supporters of the Coleman Center.

For more information on the Center, as well as its exhibits, call 205-392-2005, or visit www.colemanarts.org.