Gordon Parks (1912 – 2006) – renowned photographer, writer, poet, musician, and composer – was born and raised in the segregated town of Fort Scott in Southeast Kansas. Parks left his hometown at fifteen and did not return until twenty years later, in 1950, as LIFE magazine’s first African American staff photographer. The return sparked a new relationship between the artist and Kansas. In 1968 Parks filmed part of his first motion picture, The Learning Tree, in Fort Scott. In 1970 he visited Kansas State University to receive an honorary degree. Three years later, he delivered a convocation speech and opened an exhibition of photographs that he donated to the university. The gift was the first the artist had curated for a public institution.

This exhibition presents selections from the Gordon Parks gift to K-State and explores the ways in which Parks sought to project himself to his fellow Kansans — his experiences and his points of view — through the images he chose for the university. The photographs constitute a kind of self-portrait spanning his career and his interests. The number of images devoted to certain topics and the size of the works help signal some of the artist’s intentions.