Gordon Parks Untitled, Harlem, New York 1963
© The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Gordon Parks was a self-taught American photographer who became a prominent photojournalist in the 1940s, leaving behind an exceptional body of work from the early 1940s to the early 2000s. Despite his lack of professional training, he found work in the photography section of the Farm Security Administration and the Office of War Information (OWI) in Washington, D.C. Working for these agencies, Parks developed a personal style that allowed him to create remarkably expressive images that consistently explore the social and economic impact of poverty, racism, and other forms of discrimination.
Untitled, Harlem, New York was captured during a defining year of the civil rights movement. The pace and trajectory of civil rights activism reached a critical mass that spread worldwide; ongoing protests led to the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawing discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex, or national origin, and requiring equal access to public places and employment, as well as enforced desegregation in schools and the right to vote. In the photograph, a man holds Muhammad Speaks, the official newspaper of the Nation of Islam from 1960 to 1975, founded by a group of Elijah Muhammad’s ministers, including Malcolm X. The headline reads “OUR FREEDOM CAN’T WAIT!”
Identification
Title
Untitled, Harlem, New York
Production Date
1963
Object Number
2020.208
Credit Line
Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, museum purchase with funds provided by Jorge M. Pérez, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and PAMM Ambassadors for Black Art
Copyright
© The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
https://www.pamm.org/en/artwork/2020.208
Copy artwork link
Physical Qualities
Medium
Archival pigment print
Dimensions
30 x 40 inches
Visual Description
Untitled, Harlem, New York by Gordon Parks is an archival pigment print that measures two and half feet tall by approximately three feet wide. The photo is in landscape format, meaning that its longest side runs parallel to the ground.Park’s photograph shows a tightly packed crowd on the streets of 1960s Harlem. The photo shows the crowd from the waist up, gazing past the viewer as they all look in unison at something that is outside the frame. Some of the onlookers are smiling, while others’ faces are relaxed but focused.We see a young boy in the foreground and slightly off centered to the right. The boy is wearing a black suit with a blue tie–the blazer is a bit loose on his small frame. He is leaning his weight onto his right hand, which sits outside the frame, face focused on whatever is ahead.Just behind the young boy in the suit, centered in the frame, a man holds an open newspaper close to his chest while smiling and looking onward. The newspaper is a copy of Muhammad Speaks, the official newspaper of the Nation of Islam from 1960 to 1975, founded by a group of Elijah Muhammad’s ministers, including Malcolm X. The headline reads “OUR FREEDOM CAN’T WAIT!” a quote by Adam Clayton Powell, Jr, in bold, capital letters. Underneath the headline there is a photograph of a Black man in a black suit and tie on the cover.This man and boy are flanked by two older women on their left. The woman closest to the man also clutches a rolled-up copy of newspaper in her right arm. Her mouth is curled into a pout that also seems proud, and her eyes look wide through her gold-rimmed, cat-eye shaped sunglasses. The woman directly behind her and to our left smiles onward, with her own pair of cat eye shades, red polka dot dress, pearl necklace and straw hat. Half of her body disappears out of the frame.While these people are in sharp focus, the hundreds of onlookers that surround them softly fade out into a sea of faces. The only signs of the street corner they occupy are the brownstones that jut out from behind their heads and cover the upper third of the photo.
