{"id":591165,"date":"2026-07-17T22:43:35","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T22:43:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/591165\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T22:43:35","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T22:43:35","slug":"voices-in-the-mirror-honors-the-legacy-of-pioneering-photographer-gordon-parks-colossal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/591165\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Voices in the Mirror’ Honors the Legacy of Pioneering Photographer Gordon Parks \u2014 Colossal"},"content":{"rendered":"

From portraits taken around Harlem in the 1940s to assignments for Life magazine to the 1963 March on Washington, Gordon Parks<\/a> (1912-2006) wielded his camera<\/a> as a tool for social justice. He captured civil rights activists like Malcom X and Martin Luther King, Jr. in addition to artists and celebrities such as Helen Frankenthaler and Ingrid Bergman. But he may be best known for his candid portraits of families and communities in the segregated South during the era of Jim Crow. All of these and more will be on view in Voices in the Mirror at Jack Shainman Gallery<\/a> in mid-September, also marking the 20th anniversary of The Gordon Parks Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Parks was spurred to pursue photography in 1937 after seeing photos taken for the Farm Security Administration (FSA)<\/a>, which held a mission to document American life. \u201cI\u00a0saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs,\u201d he said. \u201cI knew at that point I had to have a camera.\u201d In 1942, he became the first Black photographer hired as part of the initiative, introducing him to Washington, D.C., where he noted that \u201cdiscrimination and bigotry were worse there than any place I had yet seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>\u201cMartin Luther King, Jr., Washington, D.C.\u201d (1963), gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 inches <\/p>\n

Among the images included in Voices in the Mirror are seminal portraits like \u201cAmerican Gothic, Washington, D.C.\u201d (1942), which captures a government worker named Ella Watson with a broom and mop. The work nods to American Regionalist painter Grant Wood\u2019s likewise iconic \u201cAmerican Gothic<\/a>\u201d painting, created 12 years earlier as an ode to American values. Parks\u2019 image represented a starkly contrasted reality.<\/p>\n

After speaking with Watson about her life and experience in D.C., Parks recalled that it was \u201cso disastrous\u00a0that I felt that I must photograph this woman in a way that would make me feel\u2014or make the public feel\u2014about what Washington, D.C., was in 1942.\u201d He positioned her in front of a flag with a symbolic mop and broom. \u201cI didn\u2019t care about what anybody\u00a0else felt,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I felt about America and Ella Watson\u2019s position inside America.\u201d<\/p>\n

The exhibition is accompanied by numerous anecdotes and reflections by some of those who appeared in the photos or had close relationships with those who did, such as Malcolm X\u2019s daughter, Qubilah Shabazz, and Cora Taylor, who was one of the women standing near a pair of segregated water fountains in \u201cSegregation in the South\u201d (1956).<\/p>\n

Voices in the Mirror opens on September 18 and continues through November 7 in New York. You might also be interested in the works of other FSA photographers<\/a> who documented the South during the 1930s and 1940s, such as Russell Lee and Marion Post Wolcott.<\/p>\n

\"an<\/a>\u201cAmerican Gothic, Washington D.C.\u201d (1942), gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 inches<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>\u201cAt Segregated Drinking Fountain, Mobile, Alabama\u201d (1956), archival pigment print, 34 x 34 inches<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>\u201cUntitled, Shady Grove, Alabama\u201d (1956), archival pigment print, 48 x 48 inches<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>\u201cUntitled, Harlem, New York\u201d (1963), gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 inches <\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>\u201cUntitled, Alabama\u201d (1956), archival pigment print, 42 x 42 inches<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>\u201cWoman and Dog in Window, Harlem, New York\u201d (1943), gelatin silver print, 34 x 34 inches <\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>\u201cMr. and Mrs. Albert Thornton, Mobile, Alabama, 1956 (1956), archival pigment print, 50 x 50 inches<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>\u201cStore Front, Mobile, Alabama\u201d (1956), archival pigment print, 48 x 48 inches<\/p>\n

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