Bessie and Little Richard the Morning After She Scalded Her Husband, Harlem
1967, printed later
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image: 38.4 × 56 cm (15 1/8 × 22 1/16 in.) sheet: 51.4 × 60.6 cm (20 1/4 × 23 7/8 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Corcoran Collection (The Gordon Parks Collection)
Accession Number
2016.117.251
Art Historical Context
Gordon Parks' *Bessie and Little Richard the Morning After She Scalded Her Husband, Harlem* (1967, printed later) captures a raw, intimate moment in the daily lives of African American residents amid the vibrant yet challenging world of 1960s Harlem. Parks, a pioneering Black photographer and photojournalist who rose to prominence with *Life* magazine, documented the dignity and struggles of marginalized communities during the Civil Rights era. This gelatin silver print, from the Corcoran Collection at the National Gallery of Art, reflects his lifelong commitment to humanizing Black experience...
About the Artist
Gordon Parks
Gordon Parks (1912–2006), born the youngest of fifteen children to a Kansas tenant farmer and his wife in segregated Fort Scott, overcame a childhood marked by poverty, racism, and tragedy—including his mother's death at age fourteen—to become one of America's most influential chroniclers of Black life. Entirely self-taught after purchasing his first camera in 1937, inspired by Farm Security Admin...