
Norm Parish, Jr. holds a print of one of his father's pieces.
SME Media LLC 's DOCUMENTARY FILM "Walls of Respect: Norman Parish and the Parish Art Gallery" will be shown at Naperville Art League and Gallery, 508 N. Center Street in Naperville from 1:30-3 PM on Saturday, February 15th, 2025. Susan Ericsson is the Director/Producer and Norm Parish, Jr, Co-producer.
Registration and $10 fee can be made at: NAL Classes & Workshops - Naperville Art League
The program will open with a brief introduction by Norman Parish, Jr. explaining the important contributions made to fine art by his father, and the many doors he opened for other aspiring fine artists who were African American.
Norman Parish (1937-2013) studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago. In the late 1960s, Parish and more than a dozen politically active African-American artists in Chicago created a then controversial mural, known as The Wall of Respect, in Chicago’s South Side which 40 years later is now “credited with sparking the creation of other ethnic murals around the world.” The mural was also celebrated by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks in one of her poems: “The Wall.”
Parish moved to Washington, DC in 1988 and opened the Parish Gallery in 1991.
In a 2013 interview, he said, “It’s because I found out how many artists there were that needed support,” says Norman. “They were good, really good. But they needed someone to help get their work out into the world. At first, a lot of the artists we featured I knew from art school, but around 93 and 94, other artists just started coming to me. These were artists missing opportunities because nobody was looking out for them, nobody was out there promoting their work.”
Norman Parish’s Georgetown gallery “became one of the country’s best-known black-owned art galleries, with a focus on works by African Americans.