Gordon Parks: Looking Through LIFE

When photographer Gordon Parks first began shooting for LIFE Magazine in 1948, he was still a documentarian in the making, having shot fashion for Vogue Magazine and the Farm Security Administration, where he made waves chronicling poverty and urban life. Two decades later, he emerged as a photographer, author, and Hollywood movie director who demonstrated that his lens went beyond just the pages of a magazine. 

This exhibit looks at two articles: “A Harlem Family,” where Parks photographed the Fontanelles, a poor Black family that lived in the slums of New York City; and “Return of the Prodigy,” an article focused on Parks, photographed by his son and written by Gerald Moore that documents his return to his hometown of Fort Scott, Kansas, where he filmed his first feature, “The Learning Tree.”