MORGAN SPARKS SMITH (1910-1993) Portrait of photographer Gordon Parks (1912-2006). Silver print, the image measuring 9x4 7/8 inches (22.9x12.4 cm.), with Parks' inscription in ink on recto, and the notation "Please credit Morgan Smith Photograph" in ink in an unknown hand on verso. 1945
Morgan and Marvin Smith, identical African American twin brothers, were photographers known for documenting the life of Harlem in the 1930s to 1950s. Their studio, located next door to The Apollo Theatre, became a popular meeting place for some of the era's most notable figures. ''Harlem spread itself before the cameras of Morgan and Marvin Smith like a great tablecloth, and eagerly they went about devouring what it had to offer,'' Gordon Parks wrote in the forward to Harlem: The Vision of Morgan and Marvin Smith (University Press of Kentucky).
Reproduced: Philip Brookman, Gordon Parks: The New Tide, Early Work 1940-1950 (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art), p. 311 (variant)
