The Getty Museum acquisition includes 17 photographs from Parks’s original visit to Brazil and four from his subsequent trips. Not only does the series embody the photographer’s mission to condemn poverty by calling attention to it through his work, Flavio’s story also became a project of great personal significance to Parks.
Gordon Parks’s Haunting Flavio Photographs
Gordon Parks chronicled the arduous life of a young boy struggling to survive in a Brazilian slum
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Flavio da Silva, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from Flavio, negative 1961; print about 1960s, Gordon Parks. Gelatin silver print. Getty Museum, 2015.18.8. Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council. © The Gordon Parks Foundation
Body Content
Gordon Parks described poverty as “the most savage of all human afflictions.” Born into destitution and segregation in Kansas in 1912, he spoke from experience.
Parks made a career from documenting the social ills and injustices of the 20th century, particularly in marginalized communities. One of his best-known photo essays chronicles the life of a young Brazilian boy named Flavio da Silva.
The Getty Museum recently acquired 21 photographs from Parks’s photo essay. The acquisition strengthens the Museum’s holdings of works by documentary photographers who—like Parks—were affiliated with the Farm Security Administration and Life magazine.
Meeting Flavio
On assignment for Life, Parks arrived in Brazil in 1961 with the intent of documenting the plight of Latin Americans living in extreme poverty. In the Catacumba favela—a slum on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro—Parks met 12-year-old Flavio.
As the oldest of eight children, Flavio was charged with taking care of his siblings and keeping house while his parents eked out a living by selling kerosene and bleach. Flavio suffered from severe asthma, rendering his tasks even more Herculean. In his autobiography Voices in the Mirror, Parks describes Flavio, saying, “Death was all over him, in his sunken eyes, cheeks and jaundiced coloring.”
Flavio After Asthma Attack, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from Flavio, negative 1961; print about 1960s, Gordon Parks. Gelatin silver print. Getty Museum, 2015.18.2. Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council. © The Gordon Parks Foundation
Bringing Flavio to Life
Parks documented the difficult lives of the da Silva family with unflinching honesty. He captured seven family members sleeping in one bed, crying children left inconsolable, and the skeletal body of Flavio reclining on his one day of rest. “I am not afraid of death,” he told Parks. “But what will they [my family] do after?”
The photographs were published in the June 16, 1961, issue of Life under the title “Freedom’s Fearful Foe: Poverty.” It became one of the best-known photo essays ever published by the magazine and inspired an outpouring of letters and donations from the American public.
Family’s Day Begins, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from Flavio, negative 1961; print about 1960s–70s, Gordon Parks. Gelatin silver print. Getty Museum, 2015.18.3. Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council. © The Gordon Parks Foundation
The Aftermath
With the financial help of Life readers, the da Silva family moved out of their ramshackle dwelling into a proper house, and Flavio traveled to Denver to receive treatment for his asthma. Parks, who accompanied Flavio from Brazil to Denver, published photographs that documented Flavio’s recovery in a second photo essay on July 21, 1961.
Flavio returned to Rio de Janeiro after two years in Colorado. Although he later married and had children, he struggled to reconcile his home in South America with his desire to return to the United States. Parks visited Brazil again in 1977, capturing images of Flavio’s adult life for the magazine.
Untitled from Flavio, negative 1977; print about 1970s–80s, Gordon Parks. Gelatin silver print. Getty Museum, 2015.18.15. Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council. © The Gordon Parks Foundation
