Ali Jumping Rope

Image Not Available

Gordon Parks, Ali Jumping Rope, 1966, gelatin silver print, sheet and image: 13 ³⁄₈ x 9 in. (34.0 x 22.8 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, 1998.121.4, © 1966, Gordon Parks Foundation

Artwork Details

Title: Ali Jumping Rope
Artist: Gordon Parks
Date: 1966
Location: Not on view
Dimensions: sheet and image: 13 ³⁄₈ x 9 in. (34.0 x 22.8 cm.)
Copyright: © 1966, Gordon Parks Foundation
Credit Line: Museum purchase through the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation
Mediums Description: gelatin silver print
Classifications: Photography
Photoprint
Subjects: Figure group — male
African American
Portrait male — Clay Cassius — full length
Portrait male — Ali, Muhammad — full length
Occupation — sport — boxing
Object Number: 1998.121.4
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1998.121.4

Artwork Description

Parks completed some three hundred assignments for Life magazine over a twenty-year period. He shot fashion spreads in Paris and portraits of luminaries Alexander Calder, Aaron Copland, Malcolm X, and others. In 1966, in Ali Jumping Rope, Parks caught the heavyweight champion with his back to the camera and both feet off the ground. The photograph, printed in soft tones, confirms that its maker neither interrupted Ali’s training regimen nor intruded on his personal space. In fact we see Ali’s face only in the mirror.

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