American Gothic (Ella Watson)

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American Gothic (Ella Watson)

Artist Gordon Parks (American, 1912 - 2006)

Date1942

Dimensions(TMA) Sheet: 13 15/16 x 10 7/8 in.;
Image: 11 13/16 x 8 7/16 in.

MediumGelatin-silver print

ClassificationPhotographs

Credit LinePurchased with funds given by the Toledo Friends of Photography and with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

2010.21

Not on View

Label TextIn 1941 Gordon Parks was awarded a fellowship to work with Roy Stryker, director of the arts program for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) in Washington, D.C—a New Deal institution begun during the Depression to document and combat rural poverty. While working there, Parks met Ella Watson, a cleaning woman at the FSA. In this image Parks positioned Mrs. Watson in front of an American flag. He named the photograph “American Gothic,” a deliberate reference to Grant Wood’s famous painting of the same title from 1930 (now in the Art Institute of Chicago). In this version of American Gothic, the protagonist is an urban black worker who is portrayed not with a pitchfork, but with a mop and broom, a quiet but monumental laborer. Photographed in 1942 at the height of World War II, the bold image calls ironic attention to the segregation and racism that Parks, Watson, and other African Americans encountered daily in the nation’s capital.Exhibition History

Toledo Museum of Art, Paper Roses: Garden-Inspired Works on Paper. Feb. 21-May 18, 2014.

Toledo Museum of Art, People Get Ready: 50 Years of Civil Rights, Jun. 27-Sept. 21, 2014.