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Radio Gallery: Gordon Parks

Courtesy of and © The Gordon Parks Foundation

The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC along with consulting curator Philip Brookman have produced a retrospective exhibit spotlighting the early works of Minnesota’s most famous photographer, Gordon Parks.

“Gordon Parks: The New Tide, Early Work 1940–1950” is on display through Feb, 18, 2019 in Washington DC and is set to travel to other states over the next year.

Gordon Parks was born in Fort Scott, Kansas, in 1912 but after his mother’s death in 1926 he was sent to live with family in Minnesota to finish his schooling in Saint Paul.

Working on the Northern Pacific Railway, 1937, he purchased his first camera.  He moved to Chicago and then to the east coast pursuing an arts career in photography. His early photographs are an unparalleled archive, documenting the daily lives of African Americans in 1940s America.

Parks had a successful career in New York, co-founder of Essence Magazine and a lifelong list of artistic accomplishments.

The exhibit “Gordon Parks: The New Tide, Early Work 1940–1950” will travel over the next year:

The Cleveland Museum of Art, March 23–June 9, 2019
Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX, August 31–December 29, 2019
Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA, February 1 – April 26, 2020

National Gallery of Art

Gordon Parks Foundation

Former Program Director, Maija Jenson teaches journalism in the Department of Communication at UMD and was a part of KUMD 2008-2019. She hosted a weekly arts program "Radio Gallery." She shares a lifetime of public radio listening, degrees in journalism and art and 20 years of public radio experience with KFAI, WHA, WSUM and KUMD.
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