Harlem Rooftops
1948, printed later
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image: 32.5 × 54.3 cm (12 13/16 × 21 3/8 in.) sheet: 51.3 × 60.6 cm (20 3/16 × 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
2016.117.143
Art Historical Context
Gordon Parks' *Harlem Rooftops* (1948, printed later), a gelatin silver print from the National Gallery of Art Corcoran Collection, the vibrant pulse of mid-century Harlem from an elevated vantage point. in the years following World War II, this photograph Parks' signature photojournalistic eye, honed during his groundbreaking career as one of the first prominent African American photographers for *Life* magazine. Harlem, a hub of Black culture amid the Great Migration and emerging Civil Rights era, comes alive through Parks' lens, evoking the resilience and everyday rhythms of urban life. Th...
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...