Half Past Autumn

At age 84 Gordon Parks is regarded by many as a living legend - photographer, film-maker, novelist, poet and composer whose life and work present an inspiring success story. In this volume the artist provides a complete retrospective of his photographic career - a book that fuses nearly 300 images with Parks' own account of his life. The text chronicles how Parks was able to turn his rage against racism into a creative force - and transform himself from a homeless teenager into one of the great photojournalists of our era, working first for the Farm Security Adminsitration then at "Vogue" and then as staff photographer for "Life" magazine. The images included in the book cover a wide range of subjects - youth gangs in New York, fashion models in Paris, a young boy in Rio's slums, portraits of Ingrid Bergman and Winston Churchill and civil rights protests to name just a few - but all are marked by Parks' bold signature style and uncompromising vision. The book also includes a sampling of his recent abstarct work in colour.