Untitled
Gordon Parks
American, 1912–2006
1957
A 1957 color photograph by Gordon Parks that quietly records everyday life on a city sidewalk beneath an elevated train, aiming to show the dignity and complexity of ordinary moments.
The eye is caught by the dark, rhythmic lattice of the elevated tracks overhead and a cluster of people mid‑motion—shop signs, a stroller, and a child’s plaid dress giving the scene a tactile, lived‑in immediacy as the street recedes into a hazy vanishing point.
The image exemplifies Parks’s humanistic documentary practice, using color and intimate composition to broaden postwar American street photography and insist on the social reality behind everyday urban scenes.
Medium
Inkjet print, printed 2019
Dimensions
17 15/16 × 11 7/8" (45.6 × 30.1 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
The Family of Man Fund
Accession
416.2019
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
