Wild Horses, Portugal
1950
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image: 24.1 × 32.4 cm (9 1/2 × 12 3/4 in.) sheet: 34.3 × 42.6 cm (13 1/2 × 16 3/4 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Corcoran Collection (The Gordon Parks Collection)
Accession Number
2016.117.272
Art Historical Context
**Wild Horses, Portugal** (1950) is a striking gelatin silver print by Gordon Parks the trailblazing African American photographer, filmmaker, and chronicler of mid-20th-century America. Captured during Parks' international travels, this image showcases a herd of wild horses galloping across the rugged Portuguese landscape, evoking raw freedom and untamed energy. Measuring 24.1 × 32.4 cm, the print's intimate scale draws viewers into the dynamic motion, highlighting Parks' masterful ability to freeze fleeting moments with dramatic composition and emotional depth. As a gelatin silver print, 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...