SAVE-THE-DATE JUNE 4, 2013 The Plaza Hotel, New York
THE GORDON PARKS AWARDS DINNERThe Gordon Parks Foundation Award is given to individuals who have enriched our lives in ways that reflect Gordon’s ideas and goals of using creative means to change and educate the world.
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Gordon Parks Una Storia Americana
A European Retrospective at Fondazione FORMA per la Fotografia April 25 - June 23 2013Throughout his career, Gordon Parks attempted to tell many stories, illustrating them with exemplary images. Stories of groups fighting for survival, small communities isolated from the world, people on the edge or those already in the spotlight who need, however, to be better understood. True or merely plausible, generated by deep drama, viewed from his own experience as ex black boy condemned to die before being born or constructed with the alchemy of pure make-believe, Gordon Parks’ stories are without exception genuinely felt, recounted as authentic visions born of the desire to have a bearing on reality, affirming through this tale told in images his own opinion and the need to shout it to the world. The exhibition held at Forma is the largest European retrospective to be dedicated to his work, to his profound poetry, to his classic, powerful and highly cinematographic photography. The exhibition is curated by Alessandra Mauro, and an accompanying catalogue is published by Contrasto. Gordon Parks. An American story is a project produced by The Gordon Parks Foundation, New York, in collaboration with Forma.
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Gordon Parks: An American Lens
Adamson Gallery, Washington, D.C.Adamson Gallery is pleased to present an exhibit of photography by Gordon Parks, one of the twentieth century's foremost documentarians of American life. This comprehensive exhibition spans some of Parks' most renowned images, from his time as a New Deal photographer, to his seminal work for Life magazine. Together, these photographs not only signify Parks' keen eye, but also present a capsule history of the twentieth century.
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Gordon Parks Exhibitions in Atlanta at Jackson Fine Art and Arnika Dawkins Gallery
Gordon Parks CentennialIn 1956, on an assignment for Life magazine, photographer Gordon Parks set off across the Deep South to document the lives of African Americans living under racial segregation. He trained his lens not on conflagrations or famous leaders but on subtle violence rendered every day through Jim Crow laws: ones that kept drinking fountains separate for blacks and whites; roads in black neighborhoods unpaved; nice playgrounds off limits to black children; rough one-room school houses more suited to the age of President Lincoln than Eisenhower. More than two dozen of the color photographs ran in the magazine in September 1956, though Parks shot more than 200 images. A dozen of those 200 images constitute the new show, “Gordon Parks: The Segregation Portfolio,” running now through early February in two Atlanta galleries, the Arnika Dawkins Gallery in southwest Atlanta and Jackson Fine Art in Buckhead. The portfolio will begin a three-year European tour in Milan in April as part of a larger retrospective of Parks’ work.
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Gordon Parks Centennial Exhibition at Jenkins Johnson Gallery San Francisco
In celebration of the 100th birthday of Gordon Parks, one of the most influential African American photographers of the 20th century, Jenkins Johnson Gallery in collaboration with The Gordon Parks Foundation presents Gordon Parks: Centennial, on view from February 21 through April 27, 2013. Gordon Parks, an iconic photographer, writer, composer, and filmmaker, would have turned 100 on November 30, 2012.
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Macy's Celebrates Gordon Parks during Black History Month
This February, Macy’s, an American retail institution salutes American cultural hero Gordon Parks in celebration of Black History Month.The Gordon Parks Foundation is pleased to partner with Macy's to celebrate the centennial of Gordon Parks for Black History Month. Parks' genius was based on the respect and trust he brought to his subjects not only through the lens of his camera but through his own personal story. Macy's is committed to keeping icons like Gordon Parks in the public eye to inspire future generations. Join Macy's in celebrating the 100th birthday of Gordon Parks: photographer, director, author, composer and American icon. Together with The Gordon Parks Foundation & the American Black Film Festival, Macy's will be hosting exciting in-store events inspired by the contributions of this great American artist.
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Gordon Parks: A Harlem Family 1967
The Studio Museum of Harlem Nov 11, 2012 - Jun 30, 2013Gordon Parks: A Harlem Family 1967 honors the legacy and the work of late iconic artist and photojournalist Gordon Parks, who would have turned 100 on November 30, 2012. The exhibition, organized by Director and Chief Curator Thelma Golden and Assistant Curator Lauren Haynes, will feature approximately thirty black and white photographs of the Fontenelle family, whose lives 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. This intimate exhibition will include all images from the original essay as well as several unpublished images—some which have never been displayed publicly.
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Gordon Parks Tribute at the U.S. Embassy--Paris, France
Reception and educational outreach programs hosted by Ambassador Charles Rivken and his wife, Susan Tolson, at the Ambassador's residence November 15-18, 2012On the occasion of the Paris Photo international show (Nov.15-18), Ambassador Charles Rivkin and his wife, Susan Tolson, hosted an event celebrating the great African-American photographer Gordon Parks in honor of the centennial of his birth (1912-2006). A selection of 24 photos, made by the Gordon Parks Foundation and courtesy of the Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York, surveyed the African-American photographer’s best known images - including portraits of Civil Rights leaders, his work for the Farm Security Administration after the Great Depression, and iconic Paris fashion images.
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GORDON PARKS: 100 MOMENTS exhibition curated by Deborah Willis
Through December 1, 2012 at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black CultureGordon Parks: 100 Moments celebrates a photographer who transformed the visual story of America with this ever-questioning lens, highlighting--in particular--the significance of the photographs from the early 1940s. 100 Moments focuses on Parks's photographic documentation of African Americans in Harlem and Washington, D.C. during a pivotal time in U.S. historu. These photographs were taken when both cities were going through significant changes--arising from pre- and post-WWII urban migration, the expansion of the black press, concerns for children's education, and entrenched segregation and economic discrimination.
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Contact: Gordon Parks, Ralph Ellison and "Invisible Man" exhibition curated by artist Glenn Ligon at the Howard Greenberg Gallery
September 14 - October 27, 2012NEW YORK, NY - In honor of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Gordon Parks, widely recognized as the most influential African American photographer of the 20th century, Howard Greenberg Gallery in collaboration with The Gordon Parks Foundation will present two simultaneous exhibitions of his work. Contact: Gordon Parks, Ralph Ellison, and “Invisible Man,” curated by Glenn Ligon, and Gordon Parks: Centennial will be on view from SEPTEMBER 14 – OCTOBER 27, 2012. Parks, a remarkable Renaissance man who was also a writer, filmmaker, and composer, brought poetic style to street photography and portraiture, while exploring the social and economic impact of racism. Most noteworthy in the exhibitions will be a number of color prints from Segregation Story, 1956, a limited edition portfolio with an essay by Maurice Berger. On exhibition for the first time, they were produced in 2012 from a group of transparencies only recently discovered in a storage box at the Gordon Parks Foundation. Contact: Gordon Parks, Ralph Ellison, and “Invisible Man,” curated by the artist Glenn Ligon, examines a series of works by Gordon Parks entitled Invisible Man. Many were first published in Life magazine upon the release of Ralph Ellison's award winning novel, which explored racial and social issues facing African Americans in the 20th century. A milestone in American literature, the novel is narrated by a black man who feels socially invisible. The exhibition includes the gelatin silver print The Invisible Man, Harlem, New York, 1952, a striking image of a man peering out from underneath a manhole cover in the middle of a deserted street. As Ligon notes, “The photos for Invisible Man veered back and forth between an attempt to illustrate some of the feverish scenes in the novel and the “reality” of Harlem, which Parks had tried to document in his previous work. Indeed, many of the photos in the exhibition were seemingly created in relationship to Parks’ photo assignments in Harlem, not as illustrations for the novel, although it is hard to distinguish between the two. It is the tension between these motives—to illustrate a fiction and to document a reality—that is the basis of this exhibition.”
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Gordon Parks: 100 Years at the International Center of Photography
Gordon's photo "Emerging Man, Harlem" in the North window along with a slideshow of his images. Runs through January 13, 2013To commemorate the centennial of the birth of photographer, filmmaker, musician, and writer Gordon Parks (1912–2006), ICP will present a public art project which includes a large-scale photo mural and slideshow of images he captured throughout his long, illustrious career. The installation Gordon Parks: 100 Years will be unveiled May 17 and will be on view through January 6, 2013. It is organized by Maurice Berger in cooperation with The Gordon Parks Foundation. http://www.icp.org/museum/exhibitions/gordon-parks-100-years
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Gordon Parks: At 100
Martin Weinstein GalleryWeinstein Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of photographs by internationally recognized artist, Gordon Parks, on the centennial of his birth. Gordon Parks: At 100 June 7 – July 28, 2012 OPENING RECEPTION Thursday, June 7 from 6:00-8:30pm “In my youth, violence became my enemy… Photography, writing, music and film are the weapons I use against it…” -Gordon Parks Weinstein Gallery is pleased to present Gordon Parks: At 100, an exhibition of 40 important photographs by the internationally acclaimed artist, Gordon Parks. A preeminent photographer, poet, novelist, composer and filmmaker, Parks was one of the most prolific and diverse American artists of the 20th century. His photographs span from the social commentary of the photographic icon of American Gothic, to Paris high fashion for Vogue. Parks’ photos chronicled the Civil rights movement in Life Magazine for two decades, and his portraits of celebrities like Ingrid Bergman brought him additional levels of fame and distinction. As a filmmaker he was the first African American man to direct a major Hollywood production with the poignant memoir of his youth, The Learning Tree, and he broke new ground with a hip and provocative African American hero in Shaft, a movie that continues to be a pop culture classic. For its initial exhibition of Parks’ work, Weinstein Gallery has selected images that reflect the photographer’s cross-cultural, poetic and humanistic vision. This exhibition of 40 works encompasses Parks’ photographic evolution from rural Kansas and early years in St. Paul to his decades of work as a Life photographer, and is contemporaneous with the Gordon Parks Foundations celebration at the Museum of Modern Art in New York honoring the life and accomplishments of a groundbreaking artist. For further information, please contact Leslie Hammons, Director, at 612 822 1722 or weingall@aol.com. Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, from 12:00 – 5:00 pm and by appointment. Weinstein Gallery would like to thank The Gordon Parks Foundation for its gracious assistance to this exhibition.
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Gordon Parks Centennial Gala
June 5, 2012 Museum of Modern ArtOn Tuesday, June 5th, The Gordon Parks Foundation honored singer/songwriter Alicia Keys, photographer Annie Leibovitz, and HBO's Co-President Richard Plepler. The presenters were John Legend, Paul Roth and Senator Christopher Dodd. Anderson Cooper was the host and Karl Lagerfeld and Gerhard Steidl were the Chairs. 2012 marks a milestone for the Foundation and will feature an array of events which include a major museum exhibition, the publication of a 5-volume boxed set, gallery exhibitions, film screenings and centennial scholarships which support the arts.
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GORDON PARKS COLLECTED WORKS
Fall 2012The Gordon Parks Foundation worked with famed book publisher Gerhard Steidl to produce a series of five books that span Parks' photographic career. The book begins in 1942 with the first professional position Parks held at the Farm Security Administration under the guidance of the program’s director, Roy Stryker. The iconic photograph of Ella Watson from this period, known as “American Gothic,” remains one of Parks’ most important and recognizable images. Aiming to expose intolerance and to fight social injustice, Parks worked for the U.S. Office of War Information and Standard Oil of New Jersey before becoming the first African American photographer for LIFE magazine in 1948. Over the course of more than two decades, Parks produced photo-essays on an exceptionally broad range of topics, including gang wars in Harlem, fashion in Paris, and segregation in the American South, before embarking on his successful career as film director. He was also an accomplished portraitist, capturing now-famous images of Ingrid Bergman, Alberto Giacometti, Gloria Vanderbilt, Duke Ellington, Malcom X, and Muhammad Ali. http://www.steidlville.com/catalogue/Steidl_FW12_13.pdf
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Celebrating Creativity
June 1, 2011The third Gordon Parks Awards Dinner honored Arianna Huffington, Karl Lagerfeld, Spike Lee, Sir Ken Robinson and Stephanie Winston Wolkoff. The Awards were presented by Tim Armstrong, Blue Man Group, Richard Plepler, Emily Rafferty and Ingrid Sischy. Iman served as Mistress of Ceremonies. The Foundation also launched the HBO/Gordon Parks Film Scholarship which was awarded to Alma Rosario, a student at the Ghetto Film School.
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Junior Cocktails and Silent Auction
Sotheby's New York, Spring 2010The Gordon Parks Junior Committee hosted cocktails and a silent auction at Sotheby's New York to benefit The Gordon Parks Foundation's exhibition fund. The event was attended by more than 250 guests.
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The Archive Doors Have Opened!
Summer 2009The summer of 2009 was spent renovating a 2,000 square foot space at Purchase College, part of the SUNY system in Purchase, New York. We have now moved in all of our photography collections and have ample space to archive and work with the images. It is a secure, climate-controlled archive and we are surrounded by students and faculty eager to help with our ongoing work and already proposing projects of their own.
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Celebrating Fashion
June 2, 2009 New York CityThe Gordon Parks Foundation Award is given to outstanding individuals whose contributions to the arts reflect four principles that Gordon demonstrated throughout his life: courage, vision, compassion and dignity. In 2009 the theme was fashion since Gordon began his career as a fashion photographer. The honorees were model and activist Liya Kebede, activist and philanthropist Russell Simmons, designer Isabel Toledo, and photographer/filmmaker Bruce Weber. Bethann Hardison, Richard Plepler, Ruben Toledo and Anna Wintour served as presenters. André Leon Tally was the Master of Ceremonies. The Foundation also launched the Nikon/Gordon Parks photography scholarship which was awarded to Chiara Marinai, a student at Purchase College SUNY.
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Gordon Parks: Portraits
Hermès Gallery May 20 - June 30, 2009 New York CityFor six weeks an exhibit of famous and not-so-famous portraits taken by Gordon Parks was open to the public at The Gallery at Hermès in New York City. More than 300 guests attended the opening. Although Parks had never exhibited these images as a group during his lifetime, he once said: “The moments I spent making these portraits always flow back with the warmest of memories. They are people who I have admired and felt at ease with. And in most cases, I attempted to intertwine their personalities and their professions.”
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Celebrating the Life and Work of Gordon Parks
June 18, 2007 New York CityThe Gordon Parks Foundation hosted its inaugural Awards Dinner and honored Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Sheila Nevins and Gloria Vanderbilt. The awards were presented by Richard D. Parsons, Diane von Furstenberg and Ingrid Saunders Jones. Anderson Cooper served as the Master of Ceremonies.
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