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View at the museum ↗Window from which Shot was Fired at King
Unrecorded artistApril 7, 1968
- Attribution
- Unknown press photographer
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Physical dimensions
- Image: 17.9 × 21.9 cm (7 1/16 × 8 5/8 in.); Paper: 20.5 × 22.5 cm (8 1/8 × 8 7/8 in.)
- Credit line
- Purchased with funds provided by Artworkers Retirement Society
Museum metadata is available under CC0. Image availability and rights are separate; consult the source record.
Source rights statement: Public-domain image eligibility not established by this export
View the museum record ↗From the museum
The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, shocked the nation and was a defining event for the civil rights movement. This press photograph was taken three days after the shooting, from the room in a boarding house where James Earl Ray aimed his gun at King as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. Unlike most newspaper images related to the event—including undoctored pictures of the immediate aftermath of the assassination, the mourning, and the riots that followed—this photograph has been heavily overpainted to produce an eerily dramatic image from the killer’s point of view.
Description: Art Institute of Chicago · CC BY 4.0