Half Past Autumn: A Retrospective [Hardcover]

Gordon Parks (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 1997

At age 84 Gordon Parks is regarded by many as a living legend - photographer, film-maker, novelist, poet and composer whose life and work present an inspiring success story. In this volume the artist provides a complete retrospective of his photographic career - a book that fuses nearly 300 images with Parks' own account of his life. The text chronicles how Parks was able to turn his rage against racism into a creative force - and transform himself from a homeless teenager into one of the great photojournalists of our era, working first for the Farm Security Adminsitration then at "Vogue" and then as staff photographer for "Life" magazine. The images included in the book cover a wide range of subjects - youth gangs in New York, fashion models in Paris, a young boy in Rio's slums, portraits of Ingrid Bergman and Winston Churchill and civil rights protests to name just a few - but all are marked by Parks' bold signature style and uncompromising vision. The book also includes a sampling of his recent abstarct work in colour.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Gordon Parks is one of the 20th century's greatest multitalented cultural treasures: a writer, poet, musician, composer, filmmaker, and photographer. In this book--the companion volume to a traveling retrospective--the full flower of Parks's genius is both awe-inspiring in its depth and thorough in its demolition of the era's social-science fictions about African American potential.

Born in Kansas, Parks wandered as a homeless teen, and through wit, smarts, and improvisation--and no experience--landed a job as a photographer for the Farm Security Administration, then with his new skill took pictures for Life magazine. "Tyrants, dictators, dethroned kings," he writes, "all stared into my camera with eyes that were unveiled. The camera revealed them as they were--human beings imprisoned inside themselves." Highlights among his photographic work include the haunting shot of domestic Ella Watson, the starkness of a 1940s teenaged gang leader named Red Jackson lying eternally young in his coffin, and the elegant, life-and-death ballet of the Spanish bullfight. Parks's depiction of Duke Ellington's towering music in motion reflects the importance of jazz and blues in Parks's artistry. From the films Shaft and The Learning Tree (the latter adapted from his own novel) to his impressionistic ballet honoring Martin Luther King Jr., his work swings with an American rhythm that continues to inspire him. "A musical theme vibrates in my sleep," he writes. "I get up, go to the piano, and jot it down. A blustery sky, a crescent moon, or the blazing sun can hurry me to poetry, or to the camera. When the doors of promise open, the trick is to quickly walk through them." --Eugene Holley Jr. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This lavishly illustrated book of photographs from prolific African American artist Parks accompanies a traveling exhibit organized by the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Though Philip Brookman, the Corcoran's curator of photography, offers an assessment of Parks's artistic contributions, his autobiography?revised, updated, and shortened for this retrospective volume?tells it best. Born in 1912, Parks began photography with a $7.50 camera in 1938 and later talked his way into a job with Roy Stryker at the Farm Security Administration. He went on to photograph a range of subjects, from factory workers and Harlem riots to fashion (for Vogue), Paris (for Life), the Civil Rights movement, and Muhammad Ali; his later color work is at once dreamlike and stark. Unrivaled in the emotional impact of his photographs and the range of projects he undertook?his bibliography/filmography lists 15 books of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and photography, and he has also written and directed several films and composed film scores, ballets, and works for piano and orchestra?Parks shows no signs of slowing down. The images in this fine book, presented chronologically from 1949, go right up to 1997. Highly recommended for photography, black history, photojournalism, fashion photography, and general collections.?Kathleen Collins, Bank of America Archives, San Francisco
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 360 pages
• Publisher: Bulfinch (October 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821222988
• ISBN-13: 978-0821222980
• Product Dimensions: 12 x 10.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #714,009 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book by a Great Photographer, December 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Half Past Autumn: A Retrospective (Paperback)

Buy this book and see the wonderful and varied career of Gordon Parks. See the world through this stunning photographer's eyes, and you will never see the world the same again. Then buy *A Choice of Weapons* and find out how this man came to create these masterworks. Everyone knows his genius as a photographer, filmmaker, and composer, but people may not know that he is a master memoirist as well. Put this book and *A Choice of Weapons* on your Christmas list!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb account of the world he's experienced!, August 24, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Half Past Autumn: A Retrospective (Hardcover)

Through his poetry and photographs, Parks does an excellent job of allowing the reader to some into the world he has experienced over the years. You feel like you've gone off on assignment with him and like you've have expericned the bigotry first hand. The messages he conveys through his work were way ahead of his time, but right on time in today's world. His intelligence brightly shines through both his photographs and poetry. The narratives, photographs and poetry all make for an outstanding compilation of his feelings and views on the world. Marvelous!

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars learned so much in one day, May 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Half Past Autumn: A Retrospective (Hardcover)

Seeing the exhibit was the most wonderful day of my life. Getting the book was the next best day. I am not sure if another photographer so talented in all fields will ever appear again. Raad A Choice of Weapons also by Gordon Parks, it will help reinforce the Retrospective.