Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Gordon Parks - American Gothic.jpg

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Gordon Parks - American Gothic[edit]

American Gothic by Gordon Parks

American Gothic, a portrait of government cleaning woman Ella Watson, is possibly Gordon Parks' best known photograph. Parks later said of the image:

I had experienced a kind of bigotry and discrimination here that I never expected to experience. ... At first, I asked her about her life, what it was like, and so disastrous that I felt that I must photograph this woman in a way that would make me feel or make the public feel about what Washington, D.C. was in 1942. So I put her before the American flag with a broom in one hand and a mop in another. And I said, "American Gothic"--that's how I felt at the moment. I didn't care about what anybody else felt. That's what I felt about America and Ella Watson's position inside America. [1]

Roy Stryker, Parks' supervisor at the Farm Security Administration, told him "that picture could get us all fired."

  • Nominate and support. - Davepape 03:45, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pedantic oppose The only article it's currently used in is Gordon Parks, but as a matter of showing Gordon Parks himself it obviously fails because he's not even in the image. It's a great image, but it needs a better connection to the text, illuminating or informing some aspect. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 16:39, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
To me that sounds almost like complaining that Hokusai doesn't appear in In the Hollow of a Wave :) - Parks' significance is in his work, not in what he looked like. But I agree that the photo merits greater discussion in the text, and have now worked to expand that (in Parks' article as well as in American Gothic). --Davepape 20:30, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What it basically comes down to is "Do we feature every excellent free work of art in wikipedia?" It's a great image, but what does it add to us as an encyclopedia? If that's the case, there are hundreds of PD paintings that could be featured. This one needs some addition value beyond being an excellent work. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 14:33, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Powerful photograph. I was actually thinking about making an article for it, but wasn't really able to find any real sources that really discussed the image itself and its impact. howcheng {chat} 22:14, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I found several sources, but none so far that go into great detail on its impact. If you want to look some more, JSTOR & Lexis/Nexis provide a few articles; in books, Fleischhauer's Documenting America, 1935-1943 and Biel's American Gothic talk about it a bit. --Davepape 18:10, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Good scan of a historically important photograph. NauticaShades 13:00, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support for the reasons above. We do occasionally feature PD art, and I would like to see us do it more. For all the PD art that is potentially available, the vast majority of it isn't available at the kinds of resolution and quality that we want (i.e., as high as reasonably possible, as in this case).--ragesoss 22:30, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support for historicism and symbolism.Harborsparrow 19:37, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted Image:Gordon Parks - American Gothic.jpg howcheng {chat} 16:46, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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