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PUBLISHER
Steidl/The Gordon Parks Foundation

BOOK FORMAT
Clth, 9.75 x 11.5 in. / 300 pgs / 50 color / 150 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2017 p. 43   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783958293441 TRADE
List Price: $65.00 CAD $87.00

AVAILABILITY
Out of stock

TERRITORY
NA ONLY

The extraordinary story of one Life photo-essay by Gordon Parks and its impact

BOOKSELLER TRADE ANNOTATION

The most widely read photo-essay of all time: Gordon Parks's 1961 Life Magazine story of the little boy Flavio living in wrenching poverty in Brazil
  • Parks' moving black-and-white photographs and story elicited more than 3,000 letters and $25,000 in donations to assist the boy, his family and the favela. Parks and Flavio remained close throughout the rest of Parks life - this book covers essay and its aftermath.
  • ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHER: Gordon Parks was born in Ft Scott, Kansas, started his photography career in St Paul, Minnesota, and traveled throughout the US as part of the Farm Security Administration (FSA). He lived most of his adult life in NYC. Gordon Parks was a photographer, filmmaker, writer and composer who is best known for chronicle the African-American experience for LIFE Magazine, writing and directing the film Shaft, and the author of autobiographical memoir The Learning Tree. The Parks Foundation is run out of Plesantville NY. FSA Archives are at Library of Congress in Washington DC.
  • PRESS & PROMOTION: Accompanies Exhibition at Toronto: Ryerson Image Centre, September 2018 traveling to the Getty, Los Angeles, July 2019.

  

STEIDL/THE GORDON PARKS FOUNDATION

Gordon Parks: The Flavio Story

Edited with text by Paul Roth, Amanda Maddox. Foreword by Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr., Flávio Pinheiro, Timothy Potts. Text by Sérgio Burgi, Beatriz Jaguaribe, Maria Alice Rezende de Carvalho, Natalie Spagnol.

Gordon Parks: The Flavio Story

The extraordinary story of one Life photo-essay by Gordon Parks and its impact

This book explores a once-popular picture story by Gordon Parks and the extraordinary chain of events it prompted. Published in Life magazine in June 1961 as “Poverty: Freedom’s Fearful Foe,” this empathetic photo-essay profiled the da Silva family, living in a hillside favela near a wealthy enclave of Rio de Janeiro. Focused primarily on the eldest son Flavio, an industrious 12-year-old suffering from crippling asthma, Parks’ story elicited more than 3,000 letters and $25,000 in donations from Life readers to help the family and the favela.

In Brazil the story sparked controversy; one news magazine, O Cruzeiro, retaliated against Life and sent photographer Henri Ballot to document poverty in New York City. Undeterred, Life embarked on a multi-year “rescue” effort that involved moving Flavio to a Denver hospital, relocating the family to a new home and administering funds to support the favela. The story, as well as Parks’ relationship to Flavio, continued to develop over many years. The details of this extraordinary history provide a fascinating example of US exceptionalism during the early 1960s and a revealing look inside the power and cultural force of the “Great American Magazine.”


Featured image is reproduced from 'Gordon Parks: The Flavio Story.'

PRAISE AND REVIEWS

Hyperallergic

Douglas Messerli

No wonder Parks kept returning to Brazil and ultimately assembled his images in a book titled Flávio. His face, body, and disposition in the wonderful photograph, wherein he is at home and both entrapped in a world still dominated by the outsider visions of Rio de Janeiro—at the very top of Parks’s photograph we still catch a glimpse of the memorable statue, Christ the Redeemer monument (Cristo Redentor) which suggests the image Rio presents to the world—hiding the reality of many of its citizen’s lives.

Gordon Parks: The Flavio Story

STATUS: Out of stock

Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.

FROM THE ARTBOOK BLOG

CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 5/16/2018

BACK IN STOCK! Gordon Parks: The Flavio Story

BACK IN STOCK! Gordon Parks: The Flavio Story

In June of 1961, Life magazine published Gordon Parks' photo-essay, Poverty: Freedom's Fearful Foe, documenting the lives of one family living in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The most widely-read photo-essay of all time, Parks' feature unintentionally elicited $25,000 in donations for the family, some of which went to bringing the oldest son, Flavio, to the United States for two years of intensive treatment for debilitating asthma. Reproduced here is Parks' cover for Life's follow-up story, published one month later. It is reproduced from Steidl's stupendous 300-page monograph, Gordon Parks: The Flavio Story. In March of 1961, Parks told a Brazilian journalist, "The world must see the tragedy of poverty as it is, and feel all its drama… everyone must face the problems of humanity. My way of facing these issues is through photography. It is important because it can show, without needing words, everything that is wrong and can be improved." continue to blog


GORDON PARKS MONOGRAPHS + ARTIST'S BOOKS

Gordon Parks: Herklas Brown and Maine, 1944

GORDON PARKS: HERKLAS BROWN AND MAINE, 1944

Steidl/The Gordon Parks Foundation/Bowdoin College Museum of Art

ISBN: 9783969993620
USD $65.00
| CAD $95

Pub Date: 2/11/2025
Forthcoming


Gordon Parks: Born Black

GORDON PARKS: BORN BLACK

Steidl/The Gordon Parks Foundation

ISBN: 9783969992289
USD $65.00
| CAD $88

Pub Date: 6/25/2024
Active | In stock


Gordon Parks: American Gothic

GORDON PARKS: AMERICAN GOTHIC

Steidl/The Gordon Parks Foundation/Minneapolis Institute of Art

ISBN: 9783969992517
USD $65.00
| CAD $95

Pub Date: 4/23/2024
Active | Out of stock


Gordon Parks: Stokely Carmichael and Black Power

GORDON PARKS: STOKELY CARMICHAEL AND BLACK POWER

Steidl/The Gordon Parks Foundation/Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

ISBN: 9783969990940
USD $50.00
| CAD $68

Pub Date: 9/27/2022
Active | In stock


Gordon Parks: Segregation Story

GORDON PARKS: SEGREGATION STORY

Steidl/The Gordon Parks Foundation

ISBN: 9783969990261
USD $65.00
| CAD $88

Pub Date: 9/27/2022
Active | In stock


Gordon Parks: Pittsburgh Grease Plant, 1944/46

GORDON PARKS: PITTSBURGH GREASE PLANT, 1944/46

Steidl/The Gordon Parks Foundation/Carnegie Museum of Art

ISBN: 9783969990056
USD $65.00
| CAD $88

Pub Date: 6/28/2022
Active | In stock


Gordon Parks: The Atmosphere of Crime, 1957

GORDON PARKS: THE ATMOSPHERE OF CRIME, 1957

Steidl/The Gordon Parks Foundation

ISBN: 9783958296961
USD $50.00
| CAD $65

Pub Date: 6/16/2020
Active | Out of stock


Gordon Parks: Muhammad Ali

GORDON PARKS: MUHAMMAD ALI

Steidl/The Gordon Parks Foundation/The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

ISBN: 9783958296190
USD $55.00
| CAD $75

Pub Date: 2/11/2020
Active | Out of stock


Gordon Parks: The New Tide

GORDON PARKS: THE NEW TIDE

Steidl/Gordon Parks Foundation/National Gallery of Art

ISBN: 9783958294943
USD $65.00
| CAD $92

Pub Date: 11/20/2018
Active | Out of stock


Gordon Parks: The Flavio Story

GORDON PARKS: THE FLAVIO STORY

Steidl/The Gordon Parks Foundation

ISBN: 9783958293441
USD $65.00
| CAD $87

Pub Date: 5/22/2018
Active | Out of stock


Gordon Parks: I Am You

GORDON PARKS: I AM YOU

Steidl/The Gordon Parks Foundation/C/O Berlin

ISBN: 9783958291829
USD $50.00
| CAD $67.5

Pub Date: 11/22/2016
Active | Out of stock


Invisible Man: Gordon Parks and Ralph Ellison in Harlem

INVISIBLE MAN: GORDON PARKS AND RALPH ELLISON IN HARLEM

Steidl/The Gordon Parks Foundation/The Art Institute of Chicago

ISBN: 9783958291096
USD $45.00
| CAD $60

Pub Date: 6/28/2016
Active | Out of stock


Gordon Parks: Collected Works

GORDON PARKS: COLLECTED WORKS

Steidl

ISBN: 9783869305301
USD $185.00
| CAD $250

Pub Date: 11/30/2012
Active | Out of stock


Gordon Parks: The Making of an Argument

GORDON PARKS: THE MAKING OF AN ARGUMENT

Steidl

ISBN: 9783869307213
USD $40.00
| CAD $54

Pub Date: 10/1/2013
Active | Out of stock


Gordon Parks: A Harlem Family

GORDON PARKS: A HARLEM FAMILY

Steidl

ISBN: 9783869306025
USD $40.00
| CAD $54

Pub Date: 1/15/2013
Active | Out of stock