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A young Black man stands in profile looking out a tall window to our right in this vertical black and white photograph. The image is cropped so his head, shoulder, and upper arm fill the left half of the composition. He has short hair and wears a shirt or jacket that diffuses the light to suggest that it could be flannel or another soft fabric. With a cigarette dangling loosely from his lips, he stares through the shattered upper pane of the window and he holds his right hand across his chest. The strong light source from the right accentuates his nose, cheeks, hair, and shoulder, and the space behind him is lost in shadow. A blurred, three-story building across the street has a dark façade with white stone lintels above the windows and a mansard roof with curved dormers.

Gordon Parks

Trapped in abandoned building by a rival gang on street, Red Jackson ponders his next move, 1948

West Building, Ground Floor — Gallery G22

Medium

gelatin silver print

Dimensions

image: 49.2 × 39.7 cm (19 3/8 × 15 5/8 in.)

sheet: 50.6 × 40.8 cm (19 15/16 × 16 1/16 in.)

Credit Line

Corcoran Collection (The Gordon Parks Collection)

Accession Number

2015.19.4605

Artists / Makers

Gordon Parks (artist) American, 1912 - 2006

Image Use

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Inscription

on verso, by unknown hand, top right in red marker: MARTIN V-13 [photo used in opera called Martin, about MLK, produced for public TV]; by LIFE, center perpendicular in black pencil: 27655 / R2-7 [?]; by Corcoran Gallery of Art, bottom right corner in graphite: CGA#059 [exhibition number for Half Past Autumn]

Provenance

Gordon Parks, New York; gift to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1998; acquired by NGA, 2015.

Associated Names

Corcoran Gallery of Art
Parks, Gordon

Exhibition History

1997: Half Past Autumn: The Art of Gordon Parks, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, September 10, 1997 – January 11, 1998

2006: Sight/Insight: Photographs from the Permanent Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, April 26 – October 29, 2006

2011: Gordon Parks: Photographs from the Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, October 1, 2011 – January 16, 2012