IN THE wake of the protests that have erupted across the US after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police and the global response to it by the Black Lives Matter movement, many activists have shared images taken by the photographer Gordon Parks (1912-2006).

In comparison with other documentary photographers of his generation, Parks has remained in the shadows, beyond being recognised as the first black photographer to break the colour bar in the US. He is, however, one of the great US photographers, black or white.

Though primarily self-taught, Parks’s education was influenced by other artists and mentors he encountered in the early part of his career. He would go on to achieve extraordinary success in his field, a major accomplishment for an Afro-American photographer during the 1940s.