Follow the photograph into its context

Gordon Parks (1912 to 2006) was a photographer, composer, writer and filmmaker, and the first African American staff photographer at Life magazine. Born into poverty and segregation in Fort Scott, Kansas, he taught himself photography after buying a Voigtländer camera at a pawnshop for $12.50, and went on to document American life for more than half a century.

A camera as a weapon

Parks described his choice of tools plainly: "I picked up a camera because it was my choice of weapons against what I hated most about the universe: racism, intolerance, poverty." His style was documentary photojournalism grounded in empathy. Whether photographing a cleaning woman in Washington, D.C. (his iconic American Gothic), a segregated family in Alabama, gang life in Harlem, or celebrities and Paris fashions, he led with intimacy and shared human experience. Curators note that his "ability to elicit empathy through an emphasis on intimacy and shared human experience" made his civil rights work especially poignant. He moved with equal ease between glamour and hardship, refusing the idea that art and advocacy had to be separate.

What the Foundation is

The Gordon Parks Foundation exists to provide access to and deepen understanding of his work and legacy for artists, scholars, students and the public. Its archive holds photographs, negatives, contact sheets, publications and ephemera spanning his work in photography, film, music and writing, and is open to researchers by appointment. The Foundation also supports contemporary artists and scholars through fellowships and grants, and handles image licensing and reproduction requests.

Segregation Story, 1956, one of the series held in the Foundation's archive.

Explore the photography archive at the Gordon Parks Foundation

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Elsewhere Editorial · demo editorial content. Gordon Parks is a subject and source, not a contributor or partner. Image sourced from gordonparksfoundation.org for editorial discovery; all rights remain with The Gordon Parks Foundation and the artist's estate.