Background
Jones, Pirkle was born on January 2, 1914, in Shreveport, Louisiana, United States. He was the son of Alfred Charles and Wilie (Tilton) Jones.
San Francisco Art Institute
(For almost sixty years Pirkle Jones has chronicled the pe...)
For almost sixty years Pirkle Jones has chronicled the people, politics, and landscape of Northern California - a "promised land" which has long held sway in the American cultural imagination. Within the confines of that locale, he has unearthed a universe of beauty and meaning, photographing everything from flea-market finds to some of the most important American social movements of the second half of the twentieth century. Operating primarily within a social-documentary framework, Jones has made images characterized by sensitivity and acute observation.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0893819492/?tag=2022091-20
2001
("Black Power * Flower Power" documents two of the most fa...)
"Black Power * Flower Power" documents two of the most fascinating stories of 20th century America's cultural history-the growth of the Black Liberation Movement embodied by the Black Panthers and the 1967 blossoming of hippie "flower power" in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury district. Photographers Pirkle Jones and Ruth-Marion Baruch masterfully documented the early days of the Black Panther Party in the San Francisco bay area. This significant movement changed the fabric of the United States. Their photographs profoundly chronicle the influence on American social, political and cultural life and suggest the universal theme of family, commitment, and hope for the future. Ruth-Marion Baruch's photographs of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love in 1967 depicts a Mecca transformed by the psychedelic music, fashion, and anti-war sentiment of the counterculture movement.
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Power-Flower-Photographs-Marion-Baruch/dp/0981993389/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=Pirkle+Jones&qid=1583333428&s=books&sr=1-2
2012
(This issue of Aperture contains the poem Death of a Valle...)
This issue of Aperture contains the poem Death of a Valley by Pirkle Jones illustrated with 25 black and white Dorothea Lange photographs.
https://www.amazon.com/Aperture-8-1960-Pirkle-Jones/dp/B005MRVI7K/ref=sr_1_10?keywords=Pirkle+Jones&qid=1583333428&s=books&sr=1-10
(In 1968, FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover vilified the Black Pan...)
In 1968, FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover vilified the Black Panthers as "the greatest threat to the internal security of the United States." That same year photographers Pirkle Jones and wife, Ruth-Marion Baruch, documented the Black Panthers for an exhibition at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. Their hope was to expose the public to the Panthers as they saw them--symbols of pride and strength--rather than the way they were being portrayed in the media. Jones and Baruch were given unprecedented access to the inner circle of the Black Panther Party. At intimate meetings, family gatherings and public demonstrations, we witness, through these incredibly moving photographs, a unique crusade for dignity and self-definition. Black Panthers is a historic documentation of this fascinating movement, so challenging and controversial to our culture that it was virtually erased from established texts and American history books.
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Panthers-1968-Kathleen-Cleaver/dp/096723669X/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=Pirkle+Jones&qid=1583333428&s=books&sr=1-3
Jones, Pirkle was born on January 2, 1914, in Shreveport, Louisiana, United States. He was the son of Alfred Charles and Wilie (Tilton) Jones.
Pirkle Jones graduated from the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute). He studied with Ansel Adams and Minor White in 1949, and cites them as major influences along with Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston and Alfred Stieglitz.
His first experience with photography was when Pirkle Jones purchased a Kodak Brownie at the age of seventeen. In the 1930s his photographs were featured in pictorialist salons and publications. He served four years in the army during World World War II in the 37th division at Fiji Islands, New Georgia, Guadalcanal, and the Philippines.
After the war, Pirkle Jones entered the first class in photography offered by the California School of Fine Arts. There he met the artists and instructors that helped him develop his talents: Ansel Adams, Minor White, Edward Weston, and Dorothea Lange. He worked as Ansel Adams' assistant for 6 years and the two photographers forged a lifelong friendship.
Dorothea Lange came to him in 1956 with an idea to collaborate on a photographic essay entitled "Death of a Valley". The essay chronicled the death of the town of Monticello in the Berryessa Valley which disappeared when the Monticello Dam was completed. The photographs were taken in the last year of the valley. Pirkle Jones later described the project with Lange as "one of the most meaningful photographic experiences of my life."
In 1968 Ruth-Marion introduced herself to Kathleen Cleaver, wife of famous Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver, and spoke of her interest in the Black Panthers and their portrayal by the media. The lieutenant was her desire to present a balanced portrayal and to that end, Pirkle Jones and Ruth-Marion photographed the Panthers from July to October 1968 in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Pirkle Jones was the recipient of an honorary doctorate from the San Francisco Art Institute, where he taught until 1994.
Pirkle Jones died on March 15, 2009, in San Rafael, California, United States.
("Black Power * Flower Power" documents two of the most fa...)
2012(For almost sixty years Pirkle Jones has chronicled the pe...)
2001(A history of the Institute, with photos.)
(This issue of Aperture contains the poem Death of a Valle...)
(In 1968, FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover vilified the Black Pan...)
Quotations: "I’ve always thought of my career as a bridge between the classic photography of Ansel Adams and the documentary work of Dorothea Lange."
Pirkle Jones married Ruth-Marion Baruch on January 15, 1949 (deceased October 1997).