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Oral History Interview with Gordon Parks, 1964 Dec. 30

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Oral history interview with Gordon Parks, 1964 Dec. 30 Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service. Contact Information Reference Department Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution Washington. D.C. 20560 www.aaa.si.edu/askus Transcript Preface The following oral history transcript is the result of a tape-recorded interview with Gordon Parks on December 30, 1964. The interview took place in New York, and was conducted by Richard Doud for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Interview RICHARD DOUD: If you would, Mr. Parks, I'd like to hear something about your background and how you became interested in photography in the first place. GORDON PARKS: Well, I was born in Kansas, raised in Minnesota and spent a good part of my early life, up until I was about fifteen or sixteen, in Kansas. After my mother died, I went to Minnesota where I was brought up. I brought myself up, rather. I took odd jobs up until 1942, until I joined the F.S.A. as a Rosenwald Fellow. Of course, I didn't start photography until about 1939 and up until that time I had worked as a waiter on the railway, bartender and road gangs, played semi-professional basketball, semi-professional football, worked in a brick plant, you name it, you know, just about everything. And so in 1939 I think, as I tell it now, I'm sure that it is true I first became interested in photography when I saw pictures of the bombing of the "Panay" which was a U.S. gunboat and I was in Chicago on a layover and a chap named Norman Allay (?) who shot the picture. And I just plain thought it was exciting the way he captured these pictures and suddenly this new medium seemed like a possibility to me and I had been looking for all sorts of means whereby I might be able to express myself. And being poor and hadn't had a chance to go to college, I ended up with the quickest thing possible. It wouldn't be so costly to further my education, my outlook, whatever I did. I think possibly I saw some of the F.S.A. photographs in Thirty-nine, beyond that . Never dreamt that I would be considered for the project; never intended to go on it. But, the photographs of Dorothea Lange and others, Russell, Lee, Rothstein, Mydans, Post Walcott and people like that, John Collier, they were very inspiring to me in a sense because they put me in touch with the reality of the time, you know? However, I didn't at that particular time know, say in 1939, '38, around there, know exactly what the file meant. So I took photography seriously, I would say, about '40, played around with it after the early part of '39 and became rather proficient and recognized a bent toward the documentary type that I had seen in the F.S.A. files. I don't think influenced by it particularly but there probably was a subconscious something there, you know? working. So I went to Chicago in 1940, I think, '41, and the photographs that I made there, aside from fashion, were things that I was trying to express in a social conscious way. I'd become sort of involved in things that were happening to people. No matter what color they be, whether they be Indians, or Negroes, the poor white person or anyone who was I thought more or less getting a bad shake. I, you know, thought I had the instinct toward championing the cause. I don't know where it came from but possibly . RICHARD DOUD: There were a lot of causes then, too. GORDON PARKS: Yes. Possibly the cause was my own early poverty. And out of these photographs I got the exhibition at Chicago's southside art center and the Rosenwald people saw them and came down and practically assured me of the first fellowship in photography. RICHARD DOUD: They made the overture then? GORDON PARKS: Yes, they did. RICHARD DOUD: Well, to interrupt just a minute, I'm curious as to how someone gets started in photography. It seems to me that that would be even more difficult than getting started, say in painting or something like that. How do you go about learning to be a photographer and how do you go about getting your work shown or accepted, this sort of thing? Looks like you're up against terrific odds. GORDON PARKS: You are up against odds. I bought my first camera in Seattle, Washington. Only paid about seven dollars and fifty cents for it. And I fell in Puget Sound the first day out. I was trying to shoot seagulls. I saved some of the pictures I'd made earlier in the day and luckily the exposures weren't altered much by the water. I brought them back to Minneapolis and I got several early breaks immediately afterward, because the people at Eastman Kodak saw those photographs that I had developed thinking that they were ruined and they encouraged me and told me that I should have a better camera. At first I thought they just wanted to sell me one. I thought after a while that they were possibly sincere and they proved to be because they eventually gave me a little show in their window in Minneapolis. I went about, not quite sure what I wanted to shoot, with this cheap camera using whatever extra dollar I could get to get the film and things like that. So I was shooting models, my wife and other attractive young ladies around Minneapolis and St. Paul. I had them standing more or less as models should stand. I had them upside down rather than turning my camera around. Did all sorts of tricks and experiments. It was interesting and I never regret that I accepted the fashion work either because, in a sense, it saved me at times when I needed it. I just kept on and I had an indomitable courage as far as getting started in photography was concerned. I realized I liked it and I went all out for it. My wife at this time was sort of against it and my mother-in-law, as all mothers-in-law are, was against it. I spent this dough and decided to get myself some cameras. That's just about what happened. I had a tremendous interest and I just kept plugging away and knocking at doors, you know, seeking out encouragement where I could get it. And eventually I went to a very fashionable store there, Frank Murphey's, in St. Paul and I asked them to allow me to shoot some fashions for them. I'm sure that they thought . that Mr. Murphey thought, who is this little colored boy out there who wants to shoot fashions, you know? And he says, "We get all our fashions done in New York. " And I was sort of crestfallen and he said, "Well, we get all our work from New York; we can't possibly let you . who told you you could shoot fashion anyway?" You know? So Mrs. Murphey was a marvelous big, black-haired Irish woman and she said, "Frank, how do you know he can't shoot fashion?" Just like that. She sort of championed my cause and I think she was trying to prove something to him against his snippiness, you know, and so he said, "Well, I don't know whether he can or not." And so she says, "Well, let's give him a try." And so that evening, two evenings later, she invited in lots of models and clothes and everything and just took the chance, the wild chance. I took the wild chance. I didn't even know how to use a Speed Graphic; I'd never seen one before, but I borrowed one from a friend of mine. His name is Harvey Goldstein. And he taught me how to put the holders in and take them out. He didn't teach me very well, because I double-exposed every film in the session. I got home that night and developed them. They were nicely exposed things. However, I could see through the double exposure that I had good composition and so forth but I was very distraught because all this work and all the gowns and the models and the chance I had, you know, as they say, "muffed it." But I had one picture and my wife said, "Well, why don't you blow that one up and tell her the truth?: So I said, "All Right." And I blew it up to 16 by 20 and met her the next day at the country club where I was supposed to continue shooting and I had it framed an elegantly placed in the foyer of the country club. She saw it and, oh, she went into ecstasy over this marvelous picture. And then I said, "Well, we didn't have good luck with the others," and I told her I'd double- exposed it. She said she didn't mind, the girls didn't mind and everything went off happily and they exhibited the pictures all around. Showed them in Mannheimers and Hershville in St. Paul. It was there that, during that particular exhibition I think Melba (?) Louis, who was interested in fashion, Joe Louis's wife, she was in St.
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