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Background information
"The photograhic volume 'American Gothic', contains the 1942 portrait of government worker Ella Watson by Gordon PARKS, among the most celebrated photographs of the twentieth century. Created as part of an extensive collaboration between the photographer and his subject, it is at once a record of one woman’s position within the racial, professional and economic hierarchies that stratified the nation’s capital and the renowned US-American photographer's visual reckoning with the realities of living in racially segregated Washington, D.C.
Through his work with Watson - a custodian in the government building where he worked - Gordon PARKS composed an intimate portrait of Black life by focusing on everyday activities, from work routines to family meals and church services. The resulting photographs trace a remarkably intimate portrait of Watson as a multidimensional figure, cherished by her community and vitally important within the civic sphere.
Content
In the photographic volume 'American Gothic' Gordon PARKS and Ella Watson provides a comprehensive overview of this pivotal series of photographs, including more than fifty images, some never published before, and additional archival material.
The included texts are by Philip Brookman, Melanee C. Harvey, Hank Willis Thomas, Salamishah Tillet as well as by Deborah Willis" (© Steidl Verlag, 2024)