Download or read book Gordon Parks written by Carole Boston Weatherford and published by Albert Whitman & Company. This book was released on 2015-02-01 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Invisible Man written by Michal Raz-Russo and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the mid-1940s. Gordon Parks had cemented his reputation as a successful photojournalist and magazine photographer, and Ralph Ellison was an established author working on his first novel, Invisible Man (1952), which would go on to become one of the most acclaimed books of the twentieth century. Less well known, however, is that their vision of racial injustices, coupled with a shared belief in the communicative power of photography, inspired collaboration on two important projects, in 1948 and 1952. Capitalizing on the growing popularity of the picture press, Parks and Ellison first joined forces on an essay titled "Harlem Is Nowhere" for '48: The Magazine of the Year. Conceived while Ellison was already three years into writing Invisible Man, this illustrated essay was centered on the Lafargue Clinic, the first nonsegregated psychiatric clinic in New York City, as a case study for the social and economic conditions in Harlem. He chose Parks to create the accompanying photographs, and during the winter months of 1948, the two roamed the streets of Harlem together, with Parks photographing under the guidance of Ellison's writing. In 1952 they worked together again, on "A Man Becomes Invisible", for the August 25 issue of Life magazine, which promoted Ellison's newly released novel. Invisible Man: Gordon Parks and Ralph Ellison in Harlem focuses on these two projects, neither of which was published as originally intended, and provides an in-depth look at the authors' shared vision of black life in America, with Harlem as its nerve center.
Download or read book The Photographs of Gordon Parks written by Gordon Parks and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Photographs from the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information (FSA-OWI) Collection at the Prints and Photograph Division, Library of Congress.
Download or read book Gordon Parks the Atmosphere of Crime 1957 written by Sarah Meister and published by Steidl. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gordon Parks' ethically complex depictions of crime in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles, with previously unseen photographs When Life magazine asked Gordon Parks to illustrate a recurring series of articles on crime in the United States in 1957, he had already been a staff photographer for nearly a decade, the first African American to hold this position. Parks embarked on a six-week journey that took him and a reporter to the streets of New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Unlike much of his prior work, the images made were in color. The resulting eight-page photo-essay "The Atmosphere of Crime" was noteworthy not only for its bold aesthetic sophistication, but also for how it challenged stereotypes about criminality then pervasive in the mainstream media. They provided a richly hued, cinematic portrayal of a largely hidden world: that of violence, police work and incarceration, seen with empathy and candor. Parks rejected clichés of delinquency, drug use and corruption, opting for a more nuanced view that reflected the social and economic factors tied to criminal behavior and afforded a rare window into the working lives of those charged with preventing and prosecuting it. Transcending the romanticism of the gangster film, the suspense of the crime caper and the racially biased depictions of criminality then prevalent in American popular culture, Parks coaxed his camera to record reality so vividly and compellingly that it would allow Life's readers to see the complexity of these chronically oversimplified situations. The Atmosphere of Crime, 1957 includes an expansive selection of never-before-published photographs from Parks' original reportage. Gordon Parks was born into poverty and segregation in Fort Scott, Kansas, in 1912. An itinerant laborer, 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. He evolved into a modern-day Renaissance man, finding success as a film director, writer and composer. The first African-American director to helm a major motion picture, he helped launch the blaxploitation genre with his film Shaft (1971). Parks died in 2006.
Download or read book Gordon Parks Pittsburgh Grease Plant 1944 46 written by and published by . This book was released on 2022-02 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Gordon Parks written by Gordon Parks and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book A Choice of Weapons written by Gordon Parks and published by Minnesota Historical Society. This book was released on 2010 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Gordon Parks's spectacular rise from poverty, personal hardships, and outright racism is astounding and inspiring." --from the foreword by Wing Young Huie
Download or read book Life Magazine and the Power of Photography written by Katherine A. Bussard and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Gordon Parks written by Russell Lord and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Bare Witness written by Gordon Parks and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stark photographs of American life by Gordon Parks.
Download or read book Back to Fort Scott written by Karen E. Haas and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Half Past Autumn written by Gordon Parks and published by Bulfinch Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covers the author's photographic work with Life magazine
Download or read book Gordon Parks written by Ann Parr and published by Pelican Publishing. This book was released on 2006 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biography of the first black photographer for Life magazine who also is a successful novelist, director, producer, screenwriter, and music composer.
Download or read book I Am You written by Peter Kunhardt and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Injustice, violence, the Civil Rights Movement, fashion and the arts - Gordon Parks captured half a century of the vast changes to the American cultural landscape in his multifaceted career. 'I Am You' reveals the breadth of his work as the first African American photographer for Vogue and Life magazines as well as a filmmaker and writer.
Download or read book Born Black written by Gordon Parks and published by . This book was released on 1971 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Photographer and filmmaker Gordon Parks, a black man at ease with himself and with the white world, was able to communicate across the boundaries of race--a significant accomplishment in the racial polarization of the 1960s. This book is an intense and compassionate study of that polarization. Composed not only of articles commissioned by Life magazine but also material which appears here for the first time, this is a personal account of some of the men and movements from the decade of black revolution--1960 to 1970. Here is a report on the Black Muslims and an arresting glimpse of Malcolm X; an intimate portrait of Stokely Carmichael and another of Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Clay; a moving reflection on the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.; a glimpse into the life of a Harlem family. "I came to each story with a strong sense of involvement, finding it difficult to screen out my own memories of a scarred past," Parks writes. His own intense feeling, growing out of what he has become, is stamped on almost every page. The knowledge of the special perils and consequences of having been born black that the author shares with his subjects is, in the end, the real substance of this book--in the text and in the stunning photographs which accompany it.--From publisher description.
Download or read book Eyes with Winged Thoughts written by Gordon Parks and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Eyes with Winged Thoughts, the forty-four photographs and fifty-eight poems, reflecting on his long and extraordinary life, offer a rare glimpse of his thoughts and feelings about everything from romantic love to the Iraq war and the passing of Pope John Paul II. He has done it all. Gordon Parks's life was an astonishing litany of firsts: in the 1940s he was the first African American photographer to work for the Farm Security Administration and for Vogue and Life magazines; in the 1960s he would become the first African American director of a major motion picture. A dominating figure in contemporary American culture, he was an artist of uncompromising vision and creativity. In 2002 Parks received the Jackie Robinson Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award and was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame, just a few in a series of honors that began when he received a prestigious Julius Rosenwald Fellowship in 1941 and which now includes an Emmy, a National Medal of the Arts, and over fifty honorary doctorates. In his nineties, he revealed the luminous photographs on display in Eyes with Winged Thoughts and the poems—some meditative and lyrical, some raw with emotion about the war in Iraq and the tragedy of the tsunami—show that he is still a true American Renaissance man.
Download or read book A Star for Noon written by Gordon Parks and published by Bulfinch Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 109 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of the most beloved photographers of the 20th century comes this celebration of romantic love that combines Parks' snapshots, his own poetry, and even his own music on the accompanying CD. HBO plans to air a documentary in November about Parks, an early "Life" photographer who still shoots at age 86.
