A book of stunning black and white photographs, capturing the events, people, and landscape of Chicago’s Washington Park during the summer of 1987.
Located in Chicago’s South side and designed by famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Washington Park takes its name from the first president of the United States. But in 1987, for at least one joyous summer, the community claimed it as their own—even renamed it Harold Washington Park—as depicted in this vibrant collection of work by Chicagoan and photographer, Rose Blouin. The resulting images represent a profile of Chicago’s Black community in a place where they come together for recreation, festivals, sports, community events, parades, weddings, and other arts and cultural events.
These photographs brim with the delights of summer: a verdant natural world, food, fun, music, family gatherings, and a community inhabiting the vast expanse of the Chicago park.They embody the diversity, strength, and humanity of the people for whom Washington Park is a summertime gathering place. To Washington Park, With Love includes forewords by Eve L. Ewing and Adrienne Brown, contextualizing and celebrating the 140 black and white photographs from Blouin’s indispensable body of work.
Eve L. Ewing is a writer, scholar, artist, and educator from Chicago. Her work has appeared in Poetry, the New Yorker, the New Republic, the Nation, the Atlantic, and many other publications. She is a sociologist at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration.
Publication date: September 10, 2024
"As a writer and photographer, Rose, for decades, has been ever-present within Chicago’s cultural life, bringing her passion and intellect to document, reflect and articulate, upon the power and ferment of Chicago’s Black creative life."
—Mark Kelly, arts advocate and former Chicago Commissioner of Cultural Affairs and Special Events
"The people in Rose Blouin's extraordinary photographs make the casual magnificence of Washington Park their own, displaying the exquisite styles of Black life lived amply, joyously, and collectively. Take your time with this glorious collection of images—you’ll come back to it again and again."
—Rebecca Zorach, author of Art for People’s Sake: Artists and Community in Black Chicago, 1965–1975
"Few artists have celebrated the small moments that create connections across the South Side of Chicago with such a spirit of warmth and humanity. Through the lens of an artist who has contributed so much to the arts community in Chicago you experience a moment in time that is specific in its timeliness."
—Bill Michel, Executive Director, Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, The University of Chicago
"In rich, vivid black-and-white photographs, Chicago artist Rose Blouin transports the viewer through time and space to Washington Park, in the summer of 1987."
—Kerry Cardoza, Chicago Reader