A new exhibition highlighting the work of Gordon Parks in the West Building of the National Gallery of Art has folks buzzing throughout the entire building, even in the front entrance. When entering the museum to see “Gordon Parks, Camera Portraits from the Corcoran Collection,” a security attendant told me: “Oh, I really like that one.” That felt like a positive endorsement.
The exhibit features 25 Parks portraits from 1941 to the 1970s and is on display until January 15, 2025.
This exhibition is a small portion of 200 Parks photos acquired by the National Gallery of Art from the Corcoran Collection.
The black-and-white portraits have a theme of strength, resilience, and advocacy among people of different backgrounds. There are famous figures like Eldridge Cleaver, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, and Leonard Berstein, and photos of the common person, like a gang member looking out a window, a husband and wife going to worship service, and Parks’ uncle.
Parks Living in Southwest D.C.
Parks moved to D.C. in 1942 after receiving a grant from the Julius Rosenwald Foundation, a funding source for many African American artists like Augusta Savage. When Parks arrived in the District, he worked for the photography section at the Farm Service Administration (FSA), taking photos of working-class people in the District. Roy Striker, head of FSA, gave Gordon an assignment before accepting him for a job. He wanted Parks to get around D.C. to fully understand the city and its people.
Included in this exhibition of portraits is Parks’ signature photo of a Washington, D.C. government charwoman taken in 1942 called “American Gothic.” It is a true depiction of a Black woman in contrast to the famous piece of the caucasian farm couple. Parks’ photograph of the charwoman is one of his signature pictures.
Opportunities in the District were instrumental to Park’s life and career.
“Parks had experienced poverty, racism and segregation. He had also traveled back and forth on the railroads as a porter,” said Sarah Greenough, senior curator and head of the Department of Photographs, National Gallery of Art. “When he came to Washington, he started going to restaurants, department stores, and movie theaters. He was deeply amazed by the rigidity of segregation in Washington and how much stronger and harsher it was than he had experienced before.”
A Varied Photography Career and Beyond
Parks was a multifaceted photojournalist and artist.
From 1948 to 1961, he was a fashion photographer for Vogue, Glamour and Life magazines. In addition to the fashion photos, he also shot photographic essays for Life and Ebony.
Beyond his photography work, Parks was a music composer, author and filmmaker. He made 11 films, including “Shaft,” “Shaft’s Big Score,” and the semi-autobiographical work “The Learning Tree.”
Viewing one of the photos of Muhammad Ali in this National Gallery of Art portrait collection, you see Parks’ fashion photography sensibilities kick in. Parks traveled to London with Ali for a heavyweight title fight, and the boxer complimented Parks on his suits.
“So Parks took Ali to his Saville Row tailor in London, and Ali bought the suit he is wearing in the photo,” said Greenough. “Parks said in the article he wrote that accompanied the photo shoot, ‘Ali realized that if he wanted to be respected by the public, he had to act like a gentleman.’ This was during the time Ali refused to go to Vietnam.”
Parks’ Work Inspires
Parks’ work continues to inspire artists and those taking in his work to this day.
A few months ago, the Kennedy Center celebrated music legend Duke Ellington with “Ellington 125th,” a series of concerts. Jason Moran, the Kennedy Center’s jazz artistic director, performed a solo piano concert against the backdrop of photos of Duke Ellington taken by Parks and used with permission from the Gordon Parks Foundation. An unforgettable dynamic was added to Moran’s beautiful piano solos.
The “Gordon Parks, Camera Portraits from the Corcoran Collection” exhibition is the second National Gallery of Art solo presentation of Parks’ works acquired from the Corcoran Museum.
From 2018-2019, the gallery presented “Gordon Parks: The New Tide, Early Work 1940-1950.”
With this current, smaller exhibition of Parks’ photographs, visitors can spend more time examining poses, facial expressions, clothes, and surroundings, to figure out the message from each print.
Visit the National Gallery of Art webpage to learn more about “Gordon Parks, Camera Portraits from the Corcoran Collection.”
