Kathleen highly recommends: “GORDON PARKS: An American Lens,” on view at Adamson Gallery [1515 Fourteenth Street] through May 31, 2013.

I was aware of Gordon Parks photographs from the FSA era, especially his iconic image of Ella   This image, appropriately titled, “American Gothic,” has been seen time and time again, but never loses its power. 

Watson, a black charwoman holding a broom and a mop against the backdrop of the American flag, taking in 1942 while Parks was working in Washington, DC.

What I did not realize was the range of Gordon Parks work, both photographically and in other artistic fields, after he relocated to Harlem in 1944.  The Adamson exhibit highlights some poignant images documenting racial segregation in the southern states during the 1950s (surprisingly in color, rather than black/white).  The indications of discrimination creep subtlety into the photographs: “segregated drinking fountain,” “for sale, lots for colored,” “colored enter here,” and on it goes.  How quickly we forget.

His fashion photographs produced for Vogue magazine, and other publications, remain refreshing.  To his credit, Parks was the sole black photographer on the Life magazine masthead in the 1960s.

To label Gordon Parks as a “Renaissance Man” is no exaggeration.  While he is best remembered for the photographs he produced depicting a changing American society, he was also an accomplished musician, writer, poet and film director (director of “Shaft” in 1971). In the 1970s, he co-founded Essence magazine.  What an amazingly talented man he was.  I only regret I never met this extraordinarily individual.

Gordon Parks died in 2006 at the age of 93.  

Go to the Adamson Gallery website for times more information: www.adamsongallery.com.

Mr. and Mrs. Albert Thornton, Mobile, Alabama, 1956

Untitled, Washington, D.C., 1963

Duke Ellington Listening to Playback, Los Angeles, California, 1960

All photographs © The Gordon Parks Foundation.