“I was walking down the street one day, and I saw Frank Murphy’s – which is a very expensive, exclusive store, strictly for rich white women – for some reason or another, and I can’t think why, I walked into that store and asked for Frank Murphy…” —Gordon Parks
The National Gallery of Art has published a new, very well-received book, Gordon Parks: The New Tide, Early Work 1940-1950, to coincide with its upcoming exhibition by the same name. In this insightful and charming excerpt of an interview with Parks for the National Visionary Leadership Project, Parks recalls an anecdote about how he bluffed his way (with only modest success) into his first job shooting fashion photography at the age of 25 in 1937 in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Gordon Parks: The New Tide, Early Work 1940–1950 is now at the National Gallery of Art, through February 18, 2019, government shutdown notwithstanding.