Pictures of Us: Photographs from The Do Good Fund Collection

In 1956, Life magazine published twenty-six color photographs taken by staff photographer Gordon Parks. The photo essay, titled The Restraints: Open and Hidden, exposed Americans to the effects of racial segregation. Over the next two months as part of the 2016 Global Georgia Initiative, the Willson Center presents Pictures of Us: Photographs from The Do Good Fund Collection, an exhibition of multiple artists including Parks in six venues on the University of Georgia campus and in the Athens community.

The Do Good Fund is a public charity that focuses on building a museum-quality collection of contemporary Southern photography, including works by emerging photographers, and encourages complimentary, community-based programming to accompany each exhibition.

Pictures of Us is presented in partnership with the exhibiting and curating entities listed below, as well as with The Georgia Review, which features a portfolio of images from The Do Good Fund collection in its Winter issue and expanded content at thegeorgiareview.com.

A schedule of venues is at the link. Our thanks to the Willson Center for helping organize this important opportunity to get re-acquainted with some of the most poignant images of American society. Gordon Parks is a national treasure, so the Russell Library is must stop in this multi-venue exhibition. Reckoning with who we are is the key to understanding who and what we want to be - as individuals, as a community, as a society. Let that reckoning continue. Come out and see the pictures.

Image:Gordon Parks. American, 1912–2006. Department Store, Mobile, Alabama, 1956. Promised gift of The Gordon Parks Foundation. Via the High Museum of Art