Gordon Parks, the American who watched the Americans from Paris
Clément Ghys, Le Monde
March 2025
Known for his photographs of the civil rights struggle, Gordon Parks spent two years in the capital for “Life Magazine” from 1949 to 1951. There, he immortalized American expatriate teenagers and the breath of fresh air that Paris represented for Black artists from his country. Several of his images are on display at the Centre Pompidou, as part of the “Black Paris” exhibition.
He has gone down in history as a photographer of civil rights, of the misery of Black ghettos, of the dignity of those who lived there… He was also, very briefly but passionately, one of the many photographers fascinated by Paris. When Gordon Parks (1912-2006) arrived in France in the late 1940s, he was already well-known. Born into a family of Black farmers in Kansas, he grew up surrounded by 15 brothers and sisters. He scraped by, working odd jobs in an America still reeling from the Great Depression, before discovering photography late in life. His name quickly circulated in newspaper editorial offices.