Gordon Parks
Gordon Parks was one of the seminal figures of twentieth century photography, who left behind a body of work that documents many of the most important aspects of American culture from the early 1940s up until his death in 2006, with a focus on race relations, poverty, civil rights, and urban life. Born into poverty and segregation in Kansas in 1912, Parks taught himself photography after buying a camera at a pawnshop. He found employment with the Farm Security Administration (F.S.A.), which was then chronicling the nation’s social conditions, before his employment at Life magazine (1948-1972).
Gordon Parks was the first African American photographer employed by Life magazine, and the Segregation Story was a pivotal point in his career, introducing a national audience to the lived experience of segregation in Mobile, Alabama. Parks’ artworks stand out in the history of civil rights photography, most notably because they are color images of intimate daily life that illustrate the accomplishments and injustices experienced by the Thornton family. Immobility, both geographic and economic, is an underlying theme in many of the images. Parks employs a haunting subtlety to his compositions, interlacing elegance, playfulness, community, and joy with strife, oppression, and inequality. An otherwise …
Gordon Parks was one of the seminal figures of twentieth century photography, who left behind a body of work that documents many of the most important aspects of American culture from the early 1940s up until his death in 2006, with a focus on race relations, poverty, civil rights, and urban life. Born into poverty and segregation in Kansas in 1912, Parks taught himself photography after buying a camera at a pawnshop. He found employment with the Farm Security Administration (F.S.A.), which was then chronicling the nation’s social conditions, before his employment at Life magazine (1948-1972).
Gordon Parks was the first African American photographer employed by Life magazine, and the Segregation Story was a pivotal point in his career, introducing a national audience to the lived experience of segregation in Mobile, Alabama. Parks’ artworks stand out in the history of civil rights photography, most notably because they are color images of intimate daily life that illustrate the accomplishments and injustices experienced by the Thornton family. Immobility, both geographic and economic, is an underlying theme in many of the images. Parks employs a haunting subtlety to his compositions, interlacing elegance, playfulness, community, and joy with strife, oppression, and inequality. An otherwise bucolic street scene is harrowed by the presence of the hand-painted “Colored Only” sign hanging across entrances and drinking fountains.
He has received countless awards, including the National Medal of Art and over fifty honorary doctorates. His work has been exhibited at The Studio Museum in Harlem, the New York Public Library, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the High Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Courtesy of Rhona Hoffman Gallery
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
Calder Foundation, New York, NY
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA
Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI
George Eastman House, Rochester, NY
Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, MI
International Center of Photography, New York, NY
Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Smithsonian, Washington, DC
Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL
Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA
Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, NY
Adamson Gallery, Washington, DC
Weinstein Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
Arthur Roger Gallery, New Orleans, LA