A dance group: Frederick Douglass housing project

Gordon Parks
$85.00
Size

Add Custom Frame

Frames ship to U.S. addresses only. Framed prints ship in 2–4 weeks and are final sale. Full framing details

Add Custom Frame

Frames ship to U.S. addresses only. Framed prints ship in 2–4 weeks and are final sale. Full framing details

Add Custom Frame

Frames ship to U.S. addresses only. Framed prints ship in 2–4 weeks and are final sale. Full framing details

Add Custom Frame

Frames ship to U.S. addresses only. Framed prints ship in 2–4 weeks and are final sale. Full framing details

Add Custom Frame

Frames ship to U.S. addresses only. Framed prints ship in 2–4 weeks and are final sale. Full framing details

Frames ship to U.S. addresses only. Framed prints ship in 2–4 weeks and are final sale. Full framing details
Artist Statement

A dance group: Frederick Douglass housing project, our newest edition by iconic photographer Gordon Parks, celebrates a moment of joy, movement, and community in 1940s public housing. A group of young Black girls performing in matching white dresses, shoes and hair bows are captured mid-step by Parks in a choreographed dance, buoyant as little clouds. Their expressions range from concentration to delight, and there’s no doubt that proud families out of frame looked on the scene gleefully. This photograph is part of Parks’s larger body of work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA), which sought to document life in underserved communities during and after the Great Depression, especially in African American neighborhoods that were often ignored or stereotyped by mainstream media.

Why We Love It

Parks was a master at using his camera not just to witness, but to uplift. In this image, the contrast between the children's bright costumes and the stark setting of the housing project speaks volumes. Parks’s work always highlights vitality, resilience, and cultural pride. Here, the dance group becomes a symbol of free creativity and aspiration, countering visual narratives of the era that often synonymized low-income Black communities with hardship alone. There’s fun in the girls’ poses and strength in their synchronicity—each kiddo embodies a kind of hopeful defiance; joy as resistance.

Both documentary and celebratory, A dance group: Frederick Douglass housing project balances social realism with aesthetic elegance. Through his work, Parks not only recorded history—he helped shape a more nuanced, empathetic, inclusive view of American life, one frame at a time.

Details

+ Limited-edition, exclusive to 20x200
+ Museum quality: archival inks, 100% cotton rag paper unless noted
+ Handcrafted custom-framing is available

Our quoted dimensions are for the size of paper containing the images, not the printed image itself. We do not alter the aspect ratio, nor do we crop or resize the artists’ originals. All of our prints have a minimum border of .5 inches to allow for framing.

Medium

Moab Lasal Exhibition Lustre

8"x10" | Edition of 5
11"x14" | Edition of 200
16"x20" | Edition of 50
20"x24" | Edition of 10
30"x40" | Edition of 5
40"x50" | Edition of 2
Artist - Gordon Parks

Gordon Parks

Gordon Parks was a photographer, musician, writer, and film director. His best-known work was in documentary photojournalism, consisting of images he made in the U.S. from the 1940s to the 1970s, focusing on issues of civil rights, poverty, and the lives of African-Americans. His work as a photographer and filmmaker was barrier-breaking: he was the first African-American photographer at LIFE and Vogue, and one of the first African-Americans to produce and direct major motion pictures such as Shaft. 

Parks was born in 1912 into a poor and segregated life in Kansas. Drawn to photography after seeing images of migrant workers in a magazine, he picked up a camera from a pawnshop and taught himself to use it. Despite a lack of formal training, he was hired by the Farm Security Administration. It was there Parks developed his style, creating powerful images that explored the socioeconomic impact of racism.

After the FSA closed, Parks worked as a freelance photographer, shooting for both fashion magazines and photographing humanitarian issues. He was hired at LIFE Magazine, where he would remain for twenty years and for whom he would create a wide range of iconic images. Many of these photographs became symbols of activism, rallying support for the growing Civil Rights Movement, which Parks believed in deeply and documented often.

Over the course of his career, Parks won numerous awards, gained over fifty honorary doctorates, directed several films, and wrote a best-selling novel. He continued photographing until his death in 2006.