Untitled, Chicago, Illinois

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Gordon Parks, Untitled, Chicago, Illinois, 1950, gelatin silver print, sheet and image: 13 ¹⁄₂ x 9 ¹⁄₂ in. (34.3 x 24.1 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, 1998.121.2, © 1950, Gordon Parks Foundation

Artwork Details

Title: Untitled, Chicago, Illinois
Artist: Gordon Parks
Date: 1950
Location: Not on view
Dimensions: sheet and image: 13 ¹⁄₂ x 9 ¹⁄₂ in. (34.3 x 24.1 cm.)
Copyright: © 1950, Gordon Parks Foundation
Credit Line: Museum purchase through the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation
Mediums Description: gelatin silver print
Classifications: Photography
Photoprint
Subjects: African American
Recreation — leisure — smoking
Figure male — full length
Cityscape — Illinois — Chicago
Architecture Interior — commercial — tavern
Object Number: 1998.121.2
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1998.121.2

Artwork Description

After the death of his mother, sixteen-year-old Park’s close-knit family split up and he went to live with a sister in St. Paul, Minnesota. The arrangement lasted only a month. Evicted by his brother-in-law, he took to the streets. Working as a waiter in a dining car for the Northern Pacific Railroad, Parks discovered the power of documentary photography – images of “men, women, and children caught in their confusion and poverty” taken by Roy Stryker’s team of Farm Security Administration photographers – in magazines riders left behind, and he began taking pictures.

African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond, 2012