Pastor Ledbetter, Chicago
1953, printed later
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image/sheet: 72.7 × 103.5 cm (28 5/8 × 40 3/4 in.) framed: 75.9 × 104.3 × 3.8 cm (29 7/8 × 41 1/16 × 1 1/2 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Corcoran Collection (The Gordon Parks Collection)
Accession Number
2016.117.180
Art Historical Context
Gordon Parks' *Pastor Ledbetter, Chicago* (1953, printed later) is a striking gelatin silver print that captures the dignity and resilience of its subject, a Chicago pastor, during a pivotal era in American history. Parks, a trailblazing African American photographer and photojournalist, documented Black life with profound empathy, often for publications like *Life* magazine. Shot in the vibrant yet challenging urban environment of postwar Chicago—a hub of the Great Migration—this portrait reflects Parks' commitment to humanizing stories overlooked by mainstream media. The gelatin silver prin...
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...