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Photographs by the late African-American author, photographer and movie-maker Gordon Parks will be on display starting May 9 at the Saint Louis Art Museum, the museum announced Thursday.

"Bare Witness: Photographs by Gordon Parks" is a retrospective exhibition of more than 50 photographs representing the finest works of the artist's prolific career, said a museum press release. These images were selected by Parks himself before his death in 2006.

Parks was a native Kansan who grew up poor in the teens and '20s of the 20th century. Few photographers offer a record of 20th-century life as candid and provocative as Parks, the museum said.

Born in Fort Scott in 1912, he began working professionally in the early 1940s. He generated one of his most enduring images, "American Gothic," in 1942 as part of a documentary project in Washington, D.C.

The photograph is a reference to Grant Wood's famous painting of the same name and depicts a black cleaning woman holding a broom against a backdrop of an American flag. The image conveys hardship and the unfulfilled promises of equality for African Americans.

From 1948-1972, Parks served as staff photographer for "Life Magazine." He investigated a range of pressing social issues including crime and urban decay in Harlem, segregation in Alabama, disease in the slums of Brazil and the struggle for civil rights by the Black Muslims.

Parks dramatized these issues through his portrayal of the day-to-day struggles of individuals and families that he grew to know well.