Gordon Parks

Gordon Parks was an American photographer and musician. He was born on November 30, 1912 but died on March 7, 2006. Parks was famously known for his photographic essays for 'Life' magazine and also for being the director of the film 'Shaft'.

Some of Parks' works:

 

Some of Parks' fashion photographs:

Parks' photography career could be said to have started when he was 25 after purchasing his first camera after viewing photographs of migrant workers in a magazine. Marva Louis was one of the first people to notice Parks due to his early fashion photographs. Parks' fashion photography clearly captured the beauty of the 1940s and is also said to have captured the beauty of the 1950s elite with carefully constructed composition. His work is also said to communicate beauty, pleasure and vanity, this was seen in his photographs of fashionably dressed woman. Many of Parks' works display the models in a subtle and dramatic pose. He would also either place them in a studio or in realistic scenes using the city as a backdrop. This was very effective as it attenuated the beauty of the woman and drew more attention towards the clothes.

Many of Parks' works were heavily influenced by racism, segregation and many other aspects of his childhood. One of Parks' most successful photographs was called 'American Gothic Washington, D.C.' (image on the left), this photograph was named after Grant Woods' iconic painting, 'American Gothic' which displayed a farmer holding a pitch fork, standing beside his daughter. The photograph displays Ella, a black woman who worked on the cleaning crew, standing in front of an american flag holding a broom in one hand and a mop in the other. The Grant woods painting clearly shows the basic daily life of a white American farmer and how they would typically dress and Parks photograph imitates this by showing daily life of an average, working black woman and how they would dress.  

Gerrit Rietveld

Gerrit Rietveld was a Dutch architect and furniture designer who was born on June 24, 1888 but sadly died on June 25, 1964.

Rietveld is said to be one of the principal members of the Dutch artistic movement called 'De Stijl'. Rietveld's 'Red and Blue Chair' and 'Rietvel Schroder House' are two  of his pieces which made him famous. 

Gerrit Rietveld's Red and Blue Chair (image below) was a chair which was designed in 1918 and is said to represent one of the first explorations by the art movement De Stijl in three dimensional physical form. 

Although the chair was made in 1918, the chair was not painted till 1923. The original chair was made out of unstained beech wood.

De Stijl elements are clearly portrayed within this chair as we can see the horizontal, vertical, and primary colours are used on this chair. 

In class I was asked to make the Red and Blue chair using the plans below. The image below displays the chair in 1:10 scale on and A4 piece of paper and the measurements are in millimetres. At first I found it difficult to work out the measurements of the chair but I not too long after got to grips with it and was flying through the process of making it. I was able to quickly and accurately draw out the components I needed for the chair. After cutting out the pieces I was able to stick them together quite quickly and I was able to finish making the chair first in my class, allowing others in the class to easily see what their chairs would end up looking like.