Edition: U.S. / Global  ART; Seeing Through Eyes Born Poor and
Born Black  Published: September 21, 1997  GORDON PARKS AT THE
AGE of 84 has already had more experience, more lives, and a lot
more professions and honors than Methuselah had in 969 years.
The youngest of 15 children of a dirt farmer in Kansas, Mr.
Parks never finished high school but has been given 30 honorary
doctorates for his various achievements: fashion photographer
and noted photojournalist who worked for Life magazine for more
than two decades; film director; writer of technical manuals,
novels, memoirs, poetry and screenplays; composer of symphonic
music, film scores and a ballet, pianist and painter.  Now, the
Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington has mounted ''Half Past
Autumn: The Art of Gordon Parks,'' a 220-photograph
retrospective on view until Jan. 11. (The exhibition travels to
nine cities, arriving at the Museum of the City of New York in
July.)  Mr. Parks is best known for a 1942 photograph of a black
cleaning woman in front of