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Gordon Parks: Crossroads Photographic Retrospective On View at PVAMU-EXTENDED Until Oct. 16Friday, July 31, 2009 PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas--Prairie View A&M University is proud to present Gordon Parks: Crossroads, a 45-photograph retrospective exhibit celebrating the life work of one of America’s most accomplished 20th century artists Gordon Parks (1912-2006). A photographer, poet, novelist, composer, musician and filmmaker, Parks spent a lifetime shattering barriers in his pursuit of truth, beauty, social justice and artistic expression. Gordon Parks: Crossroads will be on view in the PVAMU John B. Coleman Library, 4th Floor Art Gallery, through Oct. 16. All photographs are courtesy of the Gordon Parks Foundation and the Howard Greenberg Gallery. The exhibit was organized by art2art Circulating Exhibitions. *Featured in Spotlight: American Gothic, 1942, Photo Print by Gordon Parks Fri., Sept. 18- Fri., Oct 9 Film screenings dates: Sep 25--The Learning Tree Wed., Sept. 23 Wed., Sept. 30 Tues., Oct. 13 These programs and this exhibition have been made possible by the generous support of The Prairie View A&M University Student Fee Allocation Committee. Please call ext. 1523 or e-mail ldkelley@pvamu.edu for additional details on this exhibition and current programs. About Gordon Parks Parks was born in Fort Scott, Kansas, the youngest of fifteen children of a tenant farmer. His parents were devout Methodists who, despite their extreme poverty, taught their children to value education and equality. He was fifteen when his mother died, whereupon he moved north to Minnesota and supported himself as a brothel piano player and big-band singer (two decades later, while in Paris, he would compose his first piano concerto). In 1938 Parks purchased his first camera at a pawn shop. He pursued his new passion with gusto: within months, despite his lack of formal training, his probing portraits of African-American women were exhibited in the windows of the Eastman Kodak store in Minneapolis. Parks became the first black photographer to join the FSA, and shortly thereafter made his signature image, “American Gothic,” while on assignment in the nation's capital. In 1949, Parks became the first black staff photographer at Life magazine, where he would remain on the masthead for a quarter century. With his first two photo-essays for Life – on the gang wars of Harlem, and on the latest Paris collections – he announced his remarkable range. His intimate photo-essays on the Black Panthers, the nascent Black Muslim movement, and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s death remain classics – “my sentiments lay in the heart of black fury sweeping the country,” he later wrote – but equally classic were his extended photo-portraits of cultural icons as varied as Barbara Streisand, Langston Hughes, Alexander Calder, Ingrid Bergman, Duke Ellington and Muhammad Ali. “Success among whites never made Parks lose touch with black reality,” Malcolm X wrote in his autobiography. About Prairie View A&M University Prairie View A&M University was founded in 1876 and is the second-oldest public institution of higher education in Texas. With an established reputation for producing engineers, corporate leaders, nurses and educators, PVAMU offers baccalaureate degrees in 41 academic majors, 45 master’s degrees and four doctoral degree programs through eight colleges and schools. The university recently named its College of Engineering for PVAMU alumnus Roy G. Perry and the University’s marching band, The Marching Storm, was featured as the lead band in the 2009 Rose Parade. A member of The Texas A&M University System, the university is dedicated to fulfilling its land-grant mission of achieving excellence in teaching, research and service. During the university’s 132-year history, more than 50,000 academic degrees have been awarded. For more information regarding PVAMU, visit www.pvamu.edu. |