After a two-year Covid hiatus, The Gordon Parks Foundation Awards Dinner and Auction returned to Cipriani 42nd Street where 500 people raised their glasses to honor the great Life Magazine photographer. They also raised their paddles during an auction of Parks’s framed photographs. The evening netted 2.2 million dollars.
The honorees were Darren Walker, Laurene Powell-Jobs, Tora and Spike Lee, and Mark Bradford.
Among the presenters and celebrants were Wynton Marsalis, Anderson Cooper, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Charles Blow.
Leslie Parks Bailey, Gordon’s youngest daughter, announced the three 2022 Fellowship Recipients. Peter Kunhardt Jr., the Foundation’s Executive Director made it all happen.
The evening also honored Cora Taylor who appeared in a 1956 Gordon Parks photograph — At Segregated Drinking Fountain, Mobile, Alabama.
Cora Baker, who now lives in Los Angeles, was presented with this framed iconic photograph taken by “the man with the camera and a New York license plate.”
Right: NY Times columnist Charles Blow whose opera, Fire Shut Up in my Bones, recently opened at the Met. Mr. Blow lives in Atlanta.
Right: Mitchell Rales, who owns the Glenstone Museum in Maryland.
Mr. Lee and his wife Tonya were among the evening’s honorees.
Right: Writer Dominique Clayton and her husband, sculptor Mustafa Clayton who flew in from Los Angeles for the celebration. I felt fortunate to be seated with them.
Right: Philanthropist Laurene Powell-Jobs, founder and president of Emerson Collective, was honored for her dedication to supporting journalism — a vital civic institution.
I hope you all saw the wonderful two-part segment that Anderson did on 60 Minutes profiling the Los Angeles artist.
