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Gordon Parks

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For the Scottish sports journalist and former footballer, see Gordon Parks (footballer)
Gordon "Homie OG" Parks
At the International Porn Awards in Washington, 1963
Born
Gordon Roger Labryant Jordanicus basketballius Alexander Buchanan Parks

(1912-11-30)November 30, 1912
Fort Scott, Kansas,
United States
DiedMarch 7, 2006(2006-03-07) (aged 93)
New York City, New York,
United States
NationalityAmerican
Known forPhotography
Writer
Musician
Poet
Journalism
Motion Picture Director
Composer
Notable workLife, photo essays
Shaft
The Learning Tree
AwardsNAACP Image Award (2003)
PGA Oscar Micheaux Award (1993)[1] National Medal of Arts(1988)
Spingarn Medal (1972)

Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks (November 30, 1912 – March 7, 2006) was a groundbreaking American photographer, musician, poet, novelist, journalist, activist and film director. He is best remembered for his photo essays for Life magazine and as the director of the 1971 film Shaft.[2]

Photography career

One of Parks' later FSA photos of Ella Watson and her family

At the age of 25, Parks was struck by photographs of migrant workers in a magazine and bought his first camera, a Voigtländer Brilliant, for $12.50 at a pawnshop.[3] The photo clerks who developed Parks' first roll of film, applauded his work and prompted him to get a fashion assignment at Frank Murphy's women's clothing store in St. Paul. Those photos caught the eye of Marva Louis, heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis' elegant wife. She encouraged Parks to move to Chicago in 1940[4], where he began a portrait business for society women.

Parks's well-known "American Gothic, Washington D. C."

Over the next few years, Parks moved from job to job, developing a freelance portrait and fashion photographer sideline. He began to chronicle the city's South Side black ghetto and in 1941 an exhibition of those photographs won Parks a photography fellowship with the Farm Security Administration. Working as a trainee under Roy Stryker, Parks created one of his best known photographs, American Gothic, Washington, D.C.[5] (named after the Grant Wood painting American Gothic). The photo shows a black woman, Ella Watson, who worked on the cleaning crew for the FSA building, standing stiffly in front of an American flag, a broom in one hand and a mop in the background. Parks had been inspired to create the picture after encountering repeated racism in restaurants and shops, following his arrival in Washington, D.C.. Upon viewing it, Stryker said that it was an indictment of America, and could get all of his photographers fired;[6] he urged Parks to keep working with Watson, however, leading to a series of photos of her daily life. Parks, himself, said later that the first image was unsubtle and overdone; nonetheless, other commentators have argued that it drew strength from its polemical nature and its duality of victim and survivor, and so has affected far more people than his subsequent pictures of Watson.[7]

After the FSA disbanded, Parks remained in Washington as a correspondent with the Office of War Information, but became disgusted with the prejudice he encountered and resigned in 1944. Moving to Harlem, Parks became a freelance fashion photographer for Vogue. He later followed Stryker to the Standard Oil (New Jersey) Photography Project, which assigned photographers to take pictures of small towns and industrial centers. Parks's most striking of the period included Dinner Time at Mr. Hercules Brown's Home, Somerville, Maine (1944); Grease Plant Worker, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1946); Car Loaded with Furniture on Highway (1945); and Ferry Commuters, Staten Island, N.Y. (1946).

Parks renewed his search for photography jobs in the fashion world. Despite racist attitudes of the day, Vogue editor Alexander Liberman hired him to shoot a collection of evening gowns. Parks photographed fashion for Vogue for the next few years. During this time, he published his first two books, Flash Photography (1947) and Camera Portraits: Techniques and Principles of Documentary Portraiture (1948).

A 1948 photo essay on a young Harlem gang leader won Parks a staff job as a photographer and writer with Life magazine. For 20 years, Parks produced photos on subjects including fashion, sports, Broadway, poverty, racial segregation, and portraits of Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Muhammad Ali, and Barbra Streisand. His 1961 photo essay on a poor Brazilian boy named Flavio da Silva, who was dying from bronchial pneumonia and malnutrition, brought donations that saved the boy's life and paid for a new home for his family.

Film career

In the 1950s, Parks worked as a consultant on various Hollywood productions and later directed a series of documentaries commissioned by National Educational Television on black ghetto life.

In 1969, Parks became Hollywood's first major black director with his film adaptation of his autobiographical novel, The Learning Tree. It was filmed in his home town of Fort Scott.[8] Parks also composed the film's musical score and wrote the screenplay.

Shaft, Parks' 1971 detective film starring Richard Roundtree, became a major hit that spawned a series of blaxploitation films. Parks' feel for settings was confirmed by Shaft, with its portrayal of the super-cool leather-clad black private detective hired to find the kidnapped daughter of a Harlem racketeer.

Parks also directed the 1972 sequel, Shaft's Big Score in which the protagonist finds himself caught in the middle of rival gangs of racketeers. Parks's other directorial credits included The Super Cops (1974), and Leadbelly (1976), a biopic of the blues musician Huddie Ledbetter.

In the 1980s, he made several films for television and composed the music and libretto for Martin, a ballet tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr., which premiered in Washington, D.C. in 1989 and was screened on national television on King's birthday in 1990.

Writing and music

Parks also performed as a jazz pianist. His first job was as a piano player in a brothel.[9] His song "No Love," composed in another brothel, was performed over a national radio broadcast by Larry Funk and his orchestra in the early 30s.[10]

Parks composed Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1953)at the encouragement of black American conductor Dean Dixon and his wife, pianist Vivian [11] and with the help of composer Henry Brant. [12] Tree Symphony came in 1967. In 1989, he composed and choreographed Martin, a ballet dedicated to civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.

Beginning in the 1960s, Parks branched out into literature, writing The Learning Tree (1963), several books of poetry illustrated with his own photographs, and three volumes of memoirs.

In 1981, Parks turned to fiction with Shannon, a novel about Irish immigrants fighting their way up the social ladder in turbulent early 20th-century New York. Parks' writing accomplishments include novels, poetry, autobiography, and non-fiction including photographic instructional manuals and filmmaking books. Parks also wrote a poem called "The Funeral".

Parks was also a campaigner for civil rights; subject of film and print profiles, notably Half Past Autumn in 2000; and had a gallery exhibit of his photo-related, abstract oil paintings in 1981.

Personal life

Parks was born in Fort Scott, Kansas, the son of Sarah (née Ross) and Jackson Parks.[13] His father grew corn, beets, turnips, potatoes, collard greens and tomatoes. They also had a few ducks, chickens and hogs. [14] He went to a segregated elementary school. The town was too small for a separate high school, but blacks were not allowed to play sports or attend school social activities.[15]

When he was 11, three white boys threw him into the Marmaton River, knowing he couldn't swim. He had the presence of mind to duck underwater so they wouldn't see him make land.[16] His mother died when he was 15. At this time, he left home. He spent his last night there sleeping beside his mother's coffin, seeking not only solace but a way to face his own fear of death.[17]

In 1929, he briefly worked in a gentlemen's club, the Minnesota Club. There he not only learned the trappings of success, but was able read from the club library.[18] When The Crash brought an end to the club, he jumped a train to Chicago[19] where he managed to get a job in a flophouse.[20]

Parks was married and divorced three times. Parks married Sally Alvis in Minneapolis, 1933[21] (divorced, 1961); married Elizabeth Campbell, 1962 (divorced, 1973); married Genevieve Young, 1973 (divorced, 1979). He first met Gene Young when she was assigned to him as his editor in 1962, when he first started writing The Learning Tree.,[22]

For many years, Parks was romantically involved with the railroad heiress and designer Gloria Vanderbilt.[23]

Parks had four children: David, Leslie, and Toni Parks Parsons. His oldest son, Gordon Jr., was killed in a plane crash in 1979 in Kenya, where he had gone to direct a film.[24] Parks had five grandchildren: Alain, Gordon III, Sarah, Campbell, and Satchel, and was honored to be named the godfather of Malcolm X's daughter, Qubilah Shabazz.

He received over 20 honorary doctorates in his lifetime.[25] He died of cancer at the age of 93.

Legacy

Parks is remembered for his activism, filmmaking, photography, and writings. He was the first African American to work at Life magazine, and the first to write, direct, and score a Hollywood film. He was profiled in the 1967 documentary "Weapons of Gordon Parks" by American filmmaker Warren Forma.

Parks was a co-founder of Essence magazine and one of the early contributors to the blaxploitation genre.

Parks himself said that freedom was the theme of all of his work, Not allowing anyone to set boundaries, cutting loose the imagination and then making the new horizons.[5]

Parks' son, Gordon Parks, Jr. (1934–1979) directed films, including Super Fly, Three the Hard Way and Aaron Loves Angela.

Awards

  • In 1989, the United States Library of Congress deemed The Learning Tree "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" due to its being the first major studio feature film directed by an African-American. Thus, the film was preserved in the United States National Film Registry.
  • In 2000, the Library of Congress deemed Shaft to be "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", selecting it for NFR preservation as well.
  • In 1995, Parks announced that he will donate his papers and entire artistic collection to the Library of Congress. One year later, "The Gordon Parks Collection" was currated.
  • In 1997, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. mounted a career retrospective on Parks, Half Past Autumn: The Art of Gordon Parks.
  • In 1999, Gordon Parks Elementary School, a non-profit, K-5 public charter school in Kansas City, Missouri, was established to educate the urban-core.[27]

Works summary

Books

  • Flash Photography (1947) (technical)
  • Camera Portraits: Techniques and Principles of Documentary Portraiture (1948) (documentary)
  • The Learning Tree (1964) (semi-autobiographical)
  • A Choice of Weapons (1967) (autobiographical)
  • Born Black (1970) (compilation of essays and photographs of naked black people)
  • To Smile in Autumn (1979) (autobiographical)
  • Voices in the Mirror Doubleday, NY (1990) (autobiographical)
  • The Sun Stalker (2003) (biography on J.M.W. Turner)
  • A Hungry Heart (Nov. 1, 2005) (autobiographical)

Compilations of poetry and photography

  • Gordan Parks: Elementary school
  • Gordon Parks: A Poet and His Camera
  • Gordon Parks: Whispers of Intimate Things
  • Gordon Parks: In Love
  • Gordon Parks: Moments Without Proper Names (1975)
  • Arias of Silence
  • Glimpses Toward Infinity
  • A Star for Noon - An Homage to Women in Images Poetry and Music (2000)
  • Eyes With Winged Thoughts (released Nov. 1, 2005)

Films

Music

  • Moments Without Proper Names (1987)
  • Martin (1989) (ballet about Martin Luther King)
  • Shaft's Big Score (1972)

Documentaries on Parks

  • Soul in Cinema: Filming Shaft on Location (1971)
  • Passion and Memory (1986)
  • Malcolm X: Make it Plain (1994)
  • All Power to the People (1996)
  • Half Past Autumn: The Life and Works of Gordon Parks (2000)
  • Baadasssss Cinema (2002)
  • Soul Man: Isaac Hayes (2003)

Books about Parks

  • Berry, S.L. Gordon Parks. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1991. ISBN 1555466044
  • Bush, Martin H. The Photographs of Gordon Parks. Wichita, Kansas: Wichita State University, 1983.
  • Donloe, Darlene. Gordon Parks: Photographer, Writer, Composer, Film Maker [Melrose Square Black American series]. Los Angeles: Melrose Square Publishing Company, 1993. ISBN 0870675958
  • Harnan, Terry, and Russell Hoover. Gordon Parks: Black Photographer and Film Maker [Americans All series]. Champaign, Illinois: Garrard Publishing Company, 1972. ISBN 081164572X
  • Parr, Ann, and Gordon Parks. Gordon Parks: No Excuses. Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Publishing Company, 2006. ISBN 1589804112
  • Stange, Maren. Bare Witness: photographs by Gordon Parks. Milan: Skira, 2006. ISBN 8876248021
  • Turk, Midge, and Herbert Danska. Gordon Parks. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1971. ISBN 0690337930

See also

References

  1. ^ "Gordon Parks, IMDb". Imdb.com. 2009-05-01. Retrieved 2010-10-06.
  2. ^ Grundberg, Andy (2006-03-08). "Gordon Parks, a Master of the Camera, Dies at 93". New York Times.
  3. ^ Gordon Park, bio Gale Group
  4. ^ Parks, 1990, p.77
  5. ^ a b Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb. 'Life' Photographer And 'Shaft' Director Broke Color Barriers The Washington Post. 8 March 2006.
  6. ^ Eamonn McCabe (2006-03-10). "American beauty". The Guardian (G2). p. 8.
  7. ^ Lawrence W. Levine (1992). "The Folklore of Industrial Society: Popular Culture and Its Audiences". The American Historical Review. 97 (5). American Historical Association: 1369–99. doi:10.2307/2165941. JSTOR 2165941. {{cite journal}}: More than one of |work= and |journal= specified (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  8. ^ Parks, 1990, p.278
  9. ^ Parks, 1990, pp.19-20.
  10. ^ Parks, 1990, p.45
  11. ^ Parks, 1990, p.150
  12. ^ Parks, 1990, p.153
  13. ^ "Gordon Parks Biography (1912-)". Filmreference.com. Retrieved 2010-10-06.
  14. ^ Parks,1990, p.6
  15. ^ Parks, 1990, pp.1-2
  16. ^ Parks, 1990, p.16
  17. ^ Parks, 1990, pp.12-13.
  18. ^ Parks,1990, pp.26-27
  19. ^ Parks, 1990, pp.30-34
  20. ^ Parks, 1990, p.35
  21. ^ Parks, 1990, p.61
  22. ^ Parks, 1990, P.207
  23. ^ The New York Times http://partners.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20000716mag-relations-vanderbilt.html. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  24. ^ Parks, 1990, p.335
  25. ^ Parks, 1990, p.326
  26. ^ Spingard Medal Winners
  27. ^ "Gordon Parks Elementary School |". Gordonparks.org. 2010-10-02. Retrieved 2010-10-06.
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