Isabel Beside Sick Father
1961, printed later
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image: 33.5 × 46.8 cm (13 3/16 × 18 7/16 in.) sheet: 41.1 × 50.5 cm (16 3/16 × 19 7/8 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Corcoran Collection (The Gordon Parks Collection)
Accession Number
2016.117.220
Art Historical Context
Gordon Parks' *Isabel Beside Sick Father (1961, gelatin silver print) captures a tender, intimate moment of familial devotion amid hardship. In this poignant black-and-white photograph, young girl named Isabel sits vigilantly beside her ailing father, their faces conveying quiet resilience and vulnerability. Printed later from the original negative, the image measures 33.5 46.8 cm, its rich tonal range typical of the gelatin silver, which Parks mastered to evoke deep emotional depth and documentary realism. Taken during Parks' 1961 journey to Brazil's favelas for *Life* magazine, the photogra...
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...