Iconic photos are part of Gordon Parks exhibition at Wichita Art Museum

While Gordon Parks had an extraordinarily creative career that included composing music, writing poetry and making films, it’s his powerful photographs that remain a major draw for audiences.

Exhibitions featuring Parks’ photography regularly tour or go on display at museums around the country.

The Wichita Art Museum is the latest museum to showcase his work with an exhibition that opens May 11 and will run through July 27.

“Homeward to the Prairie I Come” comprises 71 photographs from a large collection that Parks himself curated and donated to Kansas State University in 1973. The collection is now held by K-State’s Beach Museum of Art, which didn’t exist when Parks made the gift.

Aileen Wang and Sarah Price from the Beach Museum co-curated the current touring portion of the collection. An earlier, larger version of the exhibition had been displayed at the Beach Museum in 2021-22.

The exhibition’s title is the first line of a poem that Parks wrote during one of his two artist-in-residencies he did in Manhattan, Kansas, in the 1980s.

“It’s some of his best stuff,” Parks’ son, David Parks, said about the collection. David Parks now makes his home in his father’s native state. He worked alongside his father on some of Parks’ projects, like filming “Shaft,” and has carved out his own creative career, including writing and filmmaking.

The fact that his father’s work continues to draw crowds and provide inspiration “is a testament to his legacy and the work he did,” Parks said. “He was a prolific communicator.”

When Wang, the Beach Museum’s curator, and Price, the museum’s collections manager, were doing research into Parks photographs in the collection, “David Parks shared significant, very helpful insights into his father’s works” during a 2019 visit, Wang said.

‘One of the photographs in the K-State gift was that of patio furniture covered deep in snow. We had no idea what the back story was,” Wang said.

The photo was of the backyard of the Parks home in White Plains, N.Y., where David had grown up and recalled “that many wonderful parties happened around that furniture,” Wang said.

Behind a camera, Parks was masterful in capturing compelling photos with a wide range of subjects. He excelled at depicting American life and culture, particularly among Black Americans, but was just as skilled with fashion shoots in Paris.

“Homeward to the Prairie I Come” offers a look at the breadth and depth of his work.

Rather than arranging the exhibition chronologically, Wang and Price organized it by themes represented by the five largest photographs, most of which are iconic and familiar.

Two of the photographs are of Flavio da Silva, the 12-year-old boy he photographed in a favela, or poor neighborhood, in Rio de Janeiro. He captured photos of Flavio and his family while on assignment by Life magazine to shoot a story on poverty in Latin America. Parks was the popular magazine’s first Black staff photographer when he was hired in 1948.

Flavio also became the subject of Parks’ first film. The 12-minute short will be shown in a screening nook inside the WAM gallery where the exhibition is displayed.

Another image is a fashion photograph from Parks’ time in Life’s Paris bureau. In 1950, he had moved his entire family to the City of Lights for the two-year posting.

A portrait of boxer Muhammad Aili and another of American sculptor Alexander Calder at work in his Roxbury, Connecticut, studio are subjects of the other two large photographs.

Other images include a portrait of Malcolm X and photos from his series “Fort Scott Revisited,” when he returned to Fort Scott, Kansas, for the first time since leaving at age 16 to reconnect and document members of his junior high school graduating class for a Life magazine assignment.

WAM has displayed Parks’ works in the past and welcomed another opportunity to display an exhibition of his, according to museum officials.

“Gordon Parks is so important to our city and our region and we are honored to celebrate him in his home state,” said WAM director Molly McFerson. “We’re particularly thrilled that this exhibition features works from his entire career and highlights his poetry and filmmaking as well as his photography. We hope visitors gain an understanding of how a child born in Kansas during segregation became one of the great artists of the 20th century.”

During the exhibition’s run, WAM will have several related events, ranging from screenings of some of his movies to a filmmaking camp for teens. The events include:

• 5-7 p.m., May 16: opening reception for an exhibition of artwork created by students with Wichita’s Gordon Parks Academy. The exhibition in the Cessna Gallery will run through July 27. Free.

• 10 a.m., June 4: Screening of “Moments Without Proper Names,” Parks’ final feature film as a director draws on his memories, music compositions and more. Free for WAM members, $2 for general public.

• 5:30-7:30 p.m., June 22: “Six Sides of the Story: Celebration of Gordon Parks” with poetry, art and music. Admission, including entry to the Parks exhibition, is $20 for the public, $10 for WAM members.

• 1-4 p.m., June 23-27: Applications are being accepted through May 30 for teens ages 14-16 to attend a free filmmaking camp led by WSU faculty member Robert Thomas. No film experience is necessary, but space is limited.

• 6-8 p.m., July 11: Screening of Parks’ “The Learning Tree” (Rated PG), which was based on Parks’ semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. Free.

• 10 a.m.-5 p.m., July 12: Free admission day to the “Homeward to the Prairie I Come.” Activities during Family ArtVenture from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. include artmaking, music by DJ Carbon and screenings of the films created during the teen filmmaking camp.

• 6-8 p.m., July 18: Screening of Parks’ “Shaft” (Rated R), a blockbuster movie considered groundbreaking for Parks as a photographer and filmmaker and for featuring a Black action hero. Free.

Gordon Parks exhibition at WAM: ‘Homeward to the Prairie I Come’

What: a touring exhibition of more than 70 photographs by Gordon Parks curated from a collection Parks donated to Kansas State University. Several events related to the exhibition, including the screening of Parks’ movies “The Learning Tree” and “Shaft,” are scheduled.

Where: Wichita Art Museum, 1400 W. Museum Blvd.

When: Sunday, May 11-Sunday, July 27. WAM hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays, with extended hours until 9 p.m. on Fridays. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays and for the upcoming federal holidays on May 26 (Memorial Day), June 19 (Juneteenth) and July 4 (Independence Day).

Admission: $12, free for WAM members, college students with ID and youth 18 and younger

More info: 316-261-4921, wam.org