Coinciding with our exhibition Gordon Parks: The South in Color, Jackson Fine Art is pleased to present works by the exhibition's curator, Dawoud Bey.

On view are four of Dawoud Bey's silver gelatin Street Portraits (1988) alongside Stony the Road (2023), a portfolio commissioned by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

In the late 1980s, Bey began photographing communities in Brooklyn, Rochester, and Washington, D.C., transitioning from a 35mm to a 4×5 inch camera and Type 55 Polaroid film. This shift allowed Bey to create a reciprocal exchange with his subjects — each sitter received an instant print while Bey retained the negative, producing enlarged portraits that vividly captured individual presence and style.

Part of an ongoing series, Stony the Road explores the intertwined histories of African Americans and the American landscape, revealing how places of quiet beauty also bear the memory of historical trauma.

Throughout Gordon Parks: The South in Color, shared concerns with community, place, and the representation of children reveal the enduring influence of Parks' humanistic vision on Bey's practice. Together, their photographs demonstrate a belief in the camera as an instrument of witness, empathy, and dignity.

Works Available