Gordon Parks
Gordon Parks

Author: Gordon Parks

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783869306025

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Gordon Parks: A Harlem Family 1967 honours the legacy and the work of late iconic artist and photojournalist Gordon Parks, who would have turned 100 on November 30, 2012. The exhibition catalogue is co-published by The Studio Museum in Harlem and The Gordon Parks Foundation and features approximately eighty black and white photographs of the Fontenelle family, whose lives Gordon Parks documented as part of a 1968 Life magazine photo essay. A searing portrait of poverty in the United States, the Fontenelle photographs provide a view of Harlem through the narrative of a specific family at a particular moment in time. Gordon Parks was born into poverty and segregation in Fort Scott, Kansas, in 1912. An itinerant labourer, he worked as a brothel pianist and railcar porter, among other jobs, before buying a camera at a pawnshop, training himself, and becoming a photographer. In addition to his storied tenures at the Farm Security Administration, the Office of War Information (1941-1945) and Life magazine (1948-1972), Parks was a modern-day Renaissance man who found success as a film director, author and composer. The first African-American director to helm a major motion picture, he popularised the Blaxploitation genre through his film Shaft (1971). He wrote numerous memoirs, novels and books of poetry and received many awards, including the National Medal of Arts and more than fifty honorary degrees. In 1997 the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., mounted his retrospective exhibition "Half Past Autumn: The Art of Gordon Parks". Parks died in 2006.

Gordon Parks
Gordon Parks

Author: Carole Boston Weatherford

Publisher: Albert Whitman & Company

Published: 2015-02-01

Total Pages: 34

ISBN-13: 0807530182

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Society of Illustrators Original Art Exhibit 2015 2015 NAACP Image Award—Outstanding Literary Work, Children New York Public Library's 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People 2016—CBC/NCSS STARRED REVIEW! "Weatherford writes in the present tense with intensity, carefully choosing words that concisely evoke the man. Parks' photography gave a powerful and memorable face to racism in America; this book gives him to young readers."—Kirkus Reviews starred review "This is a promising vehicle for introducing young children to the power of photography as an agent for social change, and it may make them aware of contemporary victims of injustice in need of an advocate with a camera."—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books The story of a self-taught photographer who used his camera to take a stand against racism in America. His white teacher tells her all-black class, You'll all wind up porters and waiters. What did she know? Gordon Parks is most famous for being the first black director in Hollywood. But before he made movies and wrote books, he was a poor African American looking for work. When he bought a camera, his life changed forever. He taught himself how to take pictures and before long, people noticed. His success as a fashion photographer landed him a job working for the government. In Washington DC, Gordon went looking for a subject, but what he found was segregation. He and others were treated differently because of the color of their skin. Gordon wanted to take a stand against the racism he observed. With his camera in hand, he found a way. Told through lyrical verse and atmospheric art, this is the story of how, with a single photograph, a self-taught artist got America to take notice.

Gordon Parks Centennial
Gordon Parks Centennial

Author: Patricia McDonnell

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 72

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book celebrates photographer, filmmaker, composer, and author Gordon Parks, drawing on photographs and archival material held at Wichita State University. Parks's legacy involves a delicate confluence of artistic traditions and the vernacular creative forces in modern American experience. John Wright explores the forms of vision Parks employed across artistic media to grapple with the culture of contradictions he observed in 20th-century America. John S. Wright is professor of African American studies and English and principal scholar for the Archie Givens Sr. Collection of African American Literature and Life at the University of Minnesota. He is a leading scholar on the Harlem Renaissance and author Ralph Ellison.

A Choice of Weapons
A Choice of Weapons

Author: Gordon Parks

Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 9780873517690

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"Gordon Parks's spectacular rise from poverty, personal hardships, and outright racism is astounding and inspiring." --from the foreword by Wing Young Huie

Gordon Parks
Gordon Parks

Author: Russell Lord

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 133

ISBN-13: 9783869307213

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume explores the making of Gordon Parks' first photographie essay for Life magazine in 1948, "Harlem Gang Leader". After gaining the trust of one particular group of gang members and their leader, Leonard "Red" Jackson, Parks produced a series of photographs that are artful, poignant, and, at times, shocking. From this large body of work (Parks made hundreds of negatives) the editors at Life selected twenty-one pictures to print in the magazine, often cropping or enhancing details in the pictures. Gordon Parks : The .Making of an Argument traces this editorial process and parses out the various voices and motives behind the production of the picture essay. This volume. together with an exhibition of the same name at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA), considers Parks' photographic practice within a larger discussion about photography as a narrative device. Featuring vintage photographs, original issues of Life magazine, contact sheets, and proof prints, Gordon Parks : The Making of an Argument raises important questions about the role of photography in addressing social concerns, its use as a documentary tool, and its function in the world of publishing. The book includes contributions from Susan M Taylor, The Montine McDaniel Freeman Director of the New Orleans Museum of Art ; Péter W Kunhardt, Jr., Executive Director of The Gordon Parks Foundation ; and Irvin Mayfield, Artistic Director of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra.

Gordon Parks
Gordon Parks

Author: Ann Parr

Publisher: Pelican Publishing

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781589804111

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Biography of the first black photographer for Life magazine who also is a successful novelist, director, producer, screenwriter, and music composer.

Life Magazine and the Power of Photography
Life Magazine and the Power of Photography

Author: Katherine A. Bussard

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780300250886

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The first comprehensive consideration of Life magazine's groundbreaking and influential contribution to the history of photography From the Great Depression to the Vietnam War, the vast majority of the photographs printed and consumed in the United States appeared on the pages of illustrated magazines. Offering an in-depth look at the photography featured in Life magazine throughout its weekly run from 1936 to 1972, this volume examines how the magazine's use of images fundamentally shaped the modern idea of photography in the United States. The work of photographers both celebrated and overlooked--including Margaret Bourke-White, Larry Burrows, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Frank Dandridge, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Fritz Goro, Gordon Parks, and W. Eugene Smith--is explored in the context of the creative and editorial structures at Life. Contributions from 25 scholars in a range of fields, from art history to American studies, provide insights into how the photographs published in Life--used to promote a predominately white, middle-class perspective--came to play a role in cultural dialogues in the United States around war, race, technology, art, and national identity. Drawing on unprecedented access to Life magazine's picture and paper archives, as well as photographers' archives, this generously illustrated volume presents previously unpublished materials, such as caption files, contact sheets, and shooting scripts, that shed new light on the collaborative process behind many now-iconic images and photo-essays.

Half Past Autumn
Half Past Autumn

Author: Gordon Parks

Publisher: Bulfinch Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 9780821225516

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Covers the author's photographic work with Life magazine

Back to Fort Scott
Back to Fort Scott

Author: Karen E. Haas

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 143

ISBN-13: 9783869309187

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The first African American photographer to be hired full time by Life magazine, Gordon Parks was often sent on assignments involving social issues that his white colleagues were not asked to cover. In 1950 he returned on one such assignment to his hometown of Fort Scott in southeastern Kansas: he was to provide photographs for a piece on segregated schools and their impact on black children in the years prior to Brown v. Board of Education. Parks intended to revisit early memories of his birthplace, many involving serious racial discrimination, and to discover what had become of the 11 members of his junior high school graduation class since his departure 20 years earlier. But when he arrived only one member of the class remained in Fort Scott, the rest having followed the well-worn paths of the Great Migration in search of better lives in urban centers such as St. Louis, Kansas City, Columbus and Chicago. Heading out to those cities Parks found his friends and their families and photographed them on their porches, in their parlors and dining rooms, on their way to church and working at their jobs, and interviewed them about their decision to leave the segregated system of their youth and head north. His resulting photo essay was slated to appear in Life in the spring of 1951, but was ultimately never published. This book showcases the 80-photo series in a single volume for the first time, offering a sensitive and visually arresting view of our country's racialized history. Gordon Parks (1912-2006) was born into poverty and segregation in Fort Scott, Kansas. The self-taught photographer also found success as a film director, author and composer. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts and over 50 honorary degrees.

Gordon Parks: Pittsburgh Grease Plant, 1944/46
Gordon Parks: Pittsburgh Grease Plant, 1944/46

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2022-02

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 9783969990056

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Class, race and labor in a Pittsburgh plant: a rarely seen series by Gordon Parks By 1944, Gordon Parks had established himself as a photographer who freely navigated the fields of press and commercial photography, with an unparalleled humanist perspective. That year, Roy Stryker--the former Farm Security Administration official who was now heading the public relations department for the Standard Oil Company (New Jersey)--commissioned Parks to travel to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to document the Penola, Inc. Grease Plant. Employing his signature style, Parks spent two years chronicling the plant's industry--critical to Pittsburgh's history and character--by photographing its workers. The resulting photographs, dramatically staged and lit and striking in their composition, showed the range of activities engaged in by Black and white workers, divided as they were by roles, race and class. The images were used as marketing materials and made available to local and national newspapers, as well as corporate magazines and newsletters. However, they served as much more than documentation of industry, enduring as an exploration of labor and its social and economic ramifications in World War II America by one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Featuring more than 100 photographs, many previously unpublished, this is the first book to focus exclusively on Parks' photographs for the Standard Oil Company, illuminating an important chapter in his career prior to his landmark career as a staff photographer for Life. Gordon Parks was born into poverty and segregation in Fort Scott, Kansas, in 1912. He worked as a brothel pianist and railcar porter, among other jobs, before buying a camera at a pawnshop, training himself and becoming a photographer. In addition to his tenures photographing for the FSA (1941-45) and Life magazine (1948-72), Parks evolved into a modern-day Renaissance man, finding success as a film director, writer and composer. He died in 2006.