Gordon Parks. American Gothic, Washington D.C., 1942, gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 inches (print) (GP42.026) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Beginning September 18, 2026, Jack Shainman Gallery in New York will present a career-spanning exhibition of photographs by Gordon Parks, one of the most consequential image-makers of the 20th century. Voices in the Mirror brings together photographs from across the artist’s remarkable oeuvre, from Harlem in the 1940s to the Civil Rights Movement and the segregated American South. Yet the exhibition looks beyond the photographs themselves. This exhibition invites the people Parks photographed, as well as their families, to reflect on the images and the memories they hold.
Parks discovered photography in 1937 after encountering the work of photographers working for the Farm Security Administration. Five years later, he became the first Black photographer hired by the agency. He would go on to create an expansive body of work that moved between photojournalism, portraiture, fashion, film, and literature. Throughout it, his camera remained a tool for revealing the human realities behind the headlines.
Among the exhibition’s highlights is American Gothic, Washington, D.C. (1942), Parks’s searing reimagining of Grant Wood’s famous painting. The photograph depicts Ella Watson, a government worker, standing before an American flag with a mop and broom in hand. Other works capture Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and the March on Washington, while Parks’s intimate photographs of Black families in Alabama reveal the daily realities of life under Jim Crow.
The exhibition’s most distinctive element, however, comes from the voices surrounding these photographs. For the first time, members of the families of Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X, among others, offer reflections on Parks’s images. The show also includes firsthand responses from people who appeared in his photographs, including Kathleen Cleaver, Kate Clark Harris, Kyle Johnson, and Cora Taylor.
Together, image and testimony create a living portrait of Parks’s practice, reminding viewers that his photographs were never simply records of the past. They remain encounters between the photographer, his subjects, and the generations who continue to live with their stories.
Marking the 20th anniversary of The Gordon Parks Foundation, Voices in the Mirror will be on view at Jack Shainman Gallery through November 7, 2026.
A new exhibition at Jack Shainman Gallery in New York celebrates the legacy of Gordon Parks.
Gordon Parks. Woman and Dog in Window, Harlem, New York, 1943, gelatin silver print, 34 x 34 inches (print) (GP43.003) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Gordon Parks. Untitled, Harlem, New York, 1947, gelatin silver print, 42 x 42 inches (sheet), 36 x 37 5/8 inches (trimmed) (GP47.002.L) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Gordon Parks. The Invisible Man, Harlem, New York, 1952, gelatin silver print, 42 x 42 inches (print) (GP52.010.L) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Gordon Parks. Untitled, Chicago, Illinois, 1953, gelatin silver print, 42 x 42 inches (print), 38 3/8 x 38 1/8 x 1 1/4 inches (framed) (GP53.003.L) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Gordon Parks. Untitled, Chicago, Illinois, 1953, gelatin silver print, 42 x 42 inches (sheet) (GP53.006) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Opening September 18, 2026, Voices in the Mirror brings together photographs from Parks’s career.
Gordon Parks. Untitled, Shady Grove, Alabama, 1956, archival pigment print, 48 x 48 inches (print), (GP56.014.L) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Gordon Parks. Store Front, Mobile, Alabama, 1956, archival pigment print, 48 x 48 (print) (GP56.042) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Gordon Parks. Mr. and Mrs. Albert Thornton, Mobile, Alabama, 1956, 1956, archival pigment print, 50 x 50 inches (GP56.034) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Gordon Parks. Untitled, Alabama, 1956, archival pigment print, 42 x 42 inches (print) (GP56.025.XL) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Gordon Parks. Ondria Tanner and Her Grandmother Window-shopping, Mobile, Alabama, 1956, archival pigment print, 42 x 42 inches (print), 42 5/8 x 42 3/8 x 1 3/4 inches (framed) (GP56.008.L) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
These works include American Gothic, Washington, D.C., and intimate images of Black life in the segregated South.
Gordon Parks. Untitled, Shady Grove, Alabama, 1956, archival pigment print, 42 x 42 inches (print) (GP56.005.L) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Gordon Parks. Untitled, 1956, archival pigment print, 28 x 28 inches (GP56.032.S) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Gordon Parks. Untitled, Fort Scott, Kansas, 1963, archival pigment print, 20 x 24 inches (print), 14 x 20 3/4 inches (image), 25 x 31 1/2 x 1 3/4 inches (framed) (GP63.019) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Gordon Parks. Untitled, Shady Grove, Alabama, 1956, archival pigment print, 28 x 28 inches (GP56.041.M) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Gordon Parks. Untitled, Fort Scott, Kansas, 1963, archival pigment print, 14 x 11 (GP63.048) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Personal reflections from Parks’s subjects and their families bring new perspectives to these historic photographs.
Gordon Parks. Untitled, Phoenix, Arizona, 1963, archival pigment print, 20 x 16 inches (print) (GP63.047) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Gordon Parks. Untitled, Harlem, New York, 1963, gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 inches (print) (GP63.051) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Gordon Parks. Muhammad Ali, Miami Beach, Florida, 1966, gelatin silver print, 60 x 40 inches (print) (GP66.011.L) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Gordon Parks. Untitled, Miami, Florida, 1966, gelatin silver print, 40 x 60 inches (print) (GP66.013) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Marking the 20th anniversary of The Gordon Parks Foundation, the exhibition honors a photographer whose work continues to shape American visual history.
Gordon Parks. Whoopi Goldberg on the Set of The Color Purple, Anson County, North Carolina, 1985, gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (GP85.002) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Gordon Parks. Martin Luther King, Jr., Washington, D.C., 1963, gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 inches (print) (GP63.010.S) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Gordon Parks. Untitled, Washington, D.C., 1963, archival pigment print, 20 x 24 inches (print) (GP63.050) © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
