Sixty-five previously unseen photographs by legendary photographer Gordon Parks, documenting life in Maine during World War II, are now on display at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art through November 9. The exhibition, titled "Gordon Parks: Herklas Brown and Maine, 1944," showcases work from Parks' early career when he was just beginning to establish himself as one of America's most influential photojournalists.
Parks arrived in Maine in January 1944, just after a massive snowstorm, on assignment for the Standard Oil Company. At the time, he was still developing his distinctive photographic style, years before he would become the first Black staff photographer at Life magazine and spend six decades documenting American life and the Civil Rights Movement. "He was still young in his career and trying to form who he was and how he would take pictures," said Peter W. Kunhardt Jr., executive director of the Gordon Parks Foundation. "These early pictures of Maine are clear examples of his ability to take a good photograph."
The assignment came about as part of Standard Oil's public relations campaign during World War II, when the company was facing serious public criticism. "Executives from the company get hauled before Congress and really chastised publicly for these bad decisions," explained Frank Goodyear, co-director at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. The company faced allegations of price gouging and collusion with a German chemical company, prompting them to launch a photographic project that would show how oil and gas improved Americans' lives and how Standard Oil was contributing to the war effort.
Parks' former boss from the Farm Service Administration, where Parks had previously worked and created his famous "American Gothic" photograph of government office cleaner Ella Watson, was leading the PR project at Standard Oil and hired Parks for the Maine assignment. Photographers were dispatched across the country to document everything from local gas station operators to farmers who relied on oil for their machinery.
Traveling through Maine as a Black man in 1944 presented significant challenges and potential dangers. "The photographic record of Maine during World War II is remarkably thin, in part because there were prohibitions that the Defense Department put in place" due to fears of coastal attacks, Goodyear noted. Additionally, "traveling alone as a Black man in a predominantly white state would have been dangerous in 1944." While The Green Book, a travel guide for Black travelers published from 1936 to 1967, might have offered some guidance on safe places to stay and eat, Maine's vast size presented logistical challenges.
"How did he get around? Where did he spend the night? These were open questions," Goodyear said. "And while we didn't find receipts for staying here or staying there, evidence in the pictures suggests that, in many instances, he stayed with the families that he was photographing and even ate at the dinner table with these individuals."
Central to the exhibition is Parks' documentation of Herklas Brown and his family, who operated an Esso gas station in Somerville. Parks photographed Brown at work and at home, capturing intimate family moments including dinner scenes. He even created a portrait of himself with the Brown family, demonstrating the trust and connection he built with his subjects. Parks visited the Browns twice – once in the harsh winter of January and again in August.
Goodyear observes a striking difference between the photographs from these two visits. The winter images "convey a certain anxiety" reflecting the wartime reality of food and fuel rationing, and the economic pressures that forced two Brown daughters to take jobs at a local shoe factory after men left for war. When Parks returned in summer, just weeks after D-Day, his photographs captured "a joyful country fair and a gas company picnic." "There is a sense of hope that the war is coming to an end, and the pictures that Parks makes in Maine in the summer of 1944 are decidedly warmer, not only warmer in the sense that the temperatures are warmer, but warmer in the sense that there is a kind of renewed optimism in the scene and the people," Goodyear explained.
The Maine assignment showcased Parks' developing ability to build trust with his subjects, a skill that would prove crucial throughout his illustrious career. He went on to photograph everything from racism and poverty to fashion and entertainment, with subjects including Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., and Stokely Carmichael. His creative work eventually extended beyond photography to writing and filmmaking.
Goodyear discovered these Maine photographs when he contacted the Gordon Parks Foundation because he felt the museum's collection was missing work by this noted photojournalist. He had no idea Parks had ever been in Maine until Kunhardt asked, "Would you be interested in any of Gordon's works that he made in Maine?" As Kunhardt noted, "They've never really been shown."
The exhibition offers visitors a unique glimpse into both Parks' early artistic development and life in Maine during World War II. "The Herklas Brown story is super important to understand how Gordon Parks would become Gordon Parks," Kunhardt emphasized. The photographs include images of a general store and Esso gas station in Somerville, a lobster bake in Augusta, Navy pilots at a flying school in Portland, farmers, and families at their dinner tables.
The Bowdoin College Museum of Art is located at 9400 College Station in Brunswick and is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with extended hours until 8:30 p.m. on Thursdays. Sunday hours are 1-5 p.m., and the museum is closed Mondays and national holidays. Admission is free. For more information about the exhibition, visitors can visit bowdoin.edu/art-museum or call 207-725-3275. Additional details about Gordon Parks and a digital archive of his work are available at gordonparksfoundation.org.
