The Gordon Parks Foundation is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a yearlong series of exhibitions, publications, fellowships and events, all of which will highlight how the legacy of Gordon Parks (1912-2006) continues to inform contemporary artistic practice in new and innovative ways. Since its founding in 2006 to steward Parks’ multifaceted work as a photographer, musician, writer and filmmaker, the Foundation has steadily grown and expanded its capacity to provide crucial support to emerging, mid-career and late-career artists across a wide variety of disciplines. This focus on interdisciplinarity is at the heart of both the Foundation and the legacy of Parks himself, who believed unreservedly in the power of art to be a catalyst for social change and to illuminate the human condition.
This anniversary year allows for a retrospective look at what the Foundation has accomplished over the past two decades, such as its sustained program of annual museum exhibitions paired with publications from Steidl that have significantly broadened the public understanding of Parks’ work. A new library at the Foundation’s headquarters in Pleasantville, New York, featuring a complete set of publications from Steidl, was recently completed. The anniversary will also highlight how the Foundation continues to provide resources to artists in the form of grants, fellowships, scholarships and publications. In the coming weeks The Gordon Parks Foundation Fellows in Art, The Gordon Parks Foundation Genevieve Young Fellow in Writing and the inaugural Gordon Parks Foundation Fellow in Music will all be announced. The Foundation’s 2026 Gala, which will continue its history of celebrating key figures working at the intersection of the arts and social justice, will take place on May 19th, with honorees and co-chairs to be announced in the coming weeks. Finally, the robust slate of exhibitions that have been planned—at the Foundation and with its gallery and museum partners around the world—will reveal the continued relevance and enduring insight of Parks’ work to our contemporary moment.
“Gordon Parks and my grandfather, Phil Kunhardt, co-founded The Gordon Parks Foundation in 2006,” said Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr., Executive Director of The Gordon Parks Foundation. “They were lifelong friends and colleagues who died just weeks apart. Gordon was a true pioneer: he was the first Black photographer to work for Vogue and Life magazine and the first Black filmmaker to direct a Hollywood feature film, both monumental breakthroughs—not just for Gordon but the world he helped change. Today, our work at the Foundation builds on Gordon’s legacy, both reflecting and amplifying his words that his camera was his weapon of choice to fight racism and injustice.”
The Gordon Parks Foundation
48 Wheeler Ave.
Pleasantville, New York
https://www.gordonparksfoundation.org/
