This Spring I was enjoying a sprawling exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum featuring select works of many African and African-American artists, when I came upon this photo of Ingrid Bergman. A photo that by itself vibrates with meaning and emotion. But learning when and where it was taken the picture takes on even greater resonance, speaking eloquently in one image to the most fraught time in the classic Hollywood movie star’s life.

The photo was taken by Gordon Parks, famous African-American photo-journalist, known in part for his glamorous shots of celebrities, but most celebrated for his photojournalism chronicling civil rights, poverty and African Americans from 1940 – 1970. I will share more of his great work below.

Yes, I am aware of the irony or indelicacy that in an exhibit full of African-(American) art mostly illustrating African-(American) experience, the item that so struck me I choose to post a blog piece about it is the photo of the blonde Swedish Hollywood Golden Age actress.

But for me this one photo in one candid image brilliantly encapsulates one of the most dramatic scandals in Hollywood history, a scandal that resonated for so long that when I was told about it as a child by my matronly babysitter 25 years later, the thrill of the scandal and emotions of it all still seemed fresh.

You see, Gordon Parks took this photo of Ingrid Bergman 1950 on the set of Roberto Rossellini’s movie “Stromboli” in Italy. It was the movie that brought Ingrid and Roberto together, they had an affair and she became pregnant. She was married at the time, her husband Petter Lindström and child (the future NY TV journalist Pia Lindström) awaiting her return in America.

The scandal was enormous. Ingrid Bergman was denounced on the floor of the United States Senate. She was exiled from Hollywood for several years. Petter Lindström sued her for desertion and custody of their daughter (Pia would not see her mother for seven years).

Ingrid Bergman would end up staying in Italy, marrying Rossellini and having three children with him (including the actress Isabella Rossellini). She made several movies with him and other European directors. She would not act in an American film production for seven years. When she finally did return to the US, there were fans at the airport with placards proclaiming “We forgive you, Ingrid”.

Which is just one indication of how fraught the whole affair was for the public during the repressive 1950s.

Which take me back to this photo, taken on the set of “Stromboli”. I don’t know if it was taken before or after Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini started their affair. Or if after, if the affair had already been made public.

But if the photo doesn’t fully fit the timeline of “The Bergman Affair” and the massive world-wide condemnation from moral scolds that ensued, it certainly evokes that history.

Ingrid, beautiful but wary, head tilted defensively back to a trio of conservatively attired Italian women, all staring at her, the lack of lens focus on their faces making them appear like haunting masks of quiet condemnation.

Ingrid Bergman on the set of “Stromboli”. A photo that speaks volumes about what she was and would be experiencing at this time – far more so than what might even have been possible to know when the picture was actually taken. A moment of photojournalistic serendipity.

And now more of Gordon Parks work from the exhibition: