Gordon Parks: The Making of an Argument

Gordon Parks was one of America's most significant social photographers, filmmakers, and writers of the twentieth century, and the first African-American photographer to work for "Life" magazine. In 1948, he began a professional relationship with "Life" that would last twenty-two years when he proposed a series of pictures about the gang wars that were then plaguing Harlem. Parks gained the trust of one group of gang members and their leader Red Jackson, producing photographs of them that are artful, emotive, poignant, and sometimes shocking. From this body of work, twenty-one pictures were selected for the photo essay. The exhibition comprised forty-five prints alongside contact sheets, issues of the original publication, and related ephemera that provide context for the images and shed light on the editorial process.

"Gordon Parks: The Making of an Argument" was organized by the New Orleans Museum of Art in collaboration with The Gordon Parks Foundation. The exhibition was supported at Vassar by the Friends of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center Exhibition Fund and the Horace Goldsmith Exhibition Fund. There are works that appeared in this exhibition that were loans to the Loeb and therefore do not appear on this website.