Pleasantville - 48 Wheeler Avenue, 1st Floor - NY 10570
The Gordon Parks Foundation is dedicated to preserving and advancing the enduring legacy of Gordon Parks—an influential American photographer, writer, filmmaker, and artist who used his creative voice to challenge injustice and promote social change. Founded in 2006 by Parks and his longtime friend and Life magazine editor Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr., the Foundation stands as a living tribute to Parks’s belief in the power of the arts to pursue what he called “the common search for a better life and a better world.”
Through a wide-ranging program of exhibitions, publications, and educational initiatives, the Foundation ensures that Parks’s work remains accessible to diverse audiences around the world. Its headquarters in Pleasantville, New York, serves as a hub for showcasing his photographs, writings, films, and musical compositions. Additionally, the Foundation collaborates with museums, cultural institutions, and educational organizations to bring his work into broader public discourse.
Central to the Foundation’s mission is its commitment to supporting the next generation of socially engaged artists and thinkers. Inspired by the fellowship that helped launch Parks’s own career, the Foundation offers scholarships, fellowships, and prizes to students, writers, and visual artists who continue to address issues of race, identity, and social justice. These programs are supported by The Gordon Parks Arts and Social Justice Fund, established in 2019 to expand the Foundation’s impact.
The Foundation also maintains an extensive archive that includes Parks’s photographs, negatives, publications, and ephemera, as well as materials from artists who share a kindred vision. These holdings are a vital resource for scholars and educators, as well as for anyone seeking to understand the profound cultural contributions of Gordon Parks.
By fostering education, artistic exploration, and dialogue, The Gordon Parks Foundation keeps alive the vision of an artist who believed in using creativity as a tool for change.
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