Richard Avedon was born in New
York on May 15, 1923 of Russian-Jewish
immigrant parents. He attended Dewitt Clinton high school
in the bronx, but never completed an academic education.
In 1940, at age 17, Avedon dropped out of high school and joined the merchant marine's photographic section, taking personnel identification photos. Later, he went on several missions to photograph shipwrecks.
Upon his return in 1944, he found a job as a photographer in a department store. Initially, Avedon made his living primarily through work in advertising as a staff photographer for harper's bazaar and later for Vogue, Avedon became well known for his stylistically innovative fashion work, often set in vivid and surprising locales.
"If a day goes by without my doing something related
to photography, it’s as though I’ve neglected
something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten
to
wake up." Richard Avedon - 1970
Portraits
Although Avedon first earned his reputation as a fashion photographer, his greatest achievement has been his reinvention of the genre of photographic portraiture. His ability to express the essence of his subject.
Avedon’s pictures continue to bring us a closer, more
intimate view of the great and the famous. The portraits are
often well lit and in front of white backdrops, with no props
or extraneous details to distract from their person from
the essential specificity of face, gaze, dress, and gesture.
when printed, the images regularly contain the dark outline
of the film in which the image was framed.
Avedon's photographs confront us with miners, unemployed people, drifters,
farmers, cowboys, and convicts, often at life-size or over.
Most of those photographed try to give as little of themselves
away as possible. They appear to show no feelings beyond scepticism
and reserve. In the bar, or at the rodeo, or wherever Avedon
has found them they may have been emotionally involved, cheerful,
uninhibited, stressed or sad: but in front of his camera, they
appear totally inward. There is barely a trace of the theatrical
expressiveness or the extravagant gestures that Avedon elicits
from the actors, singers or writers who sit for him. These
portraits are expressive nevertheless. Their hard physical
labour, the harshness of their everyday lives, their struggle
for survival, has etched their features and their souls as
a river gouges out a canyon. Their faces become landscapes, and their
bodies territories, on which they carry their garments around with them.
Fame
In 1989 received an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art in London and in 1992 he became the first staff photographer for the New Yorker. The world’s "most famous photographer" trumpeted a 2002 story on Avedon in the New York Times. It was a title he wore for decades. Back in 1958, he was named one of the world’s 10 finest photographers by Popular Photography magazine (he was also reputed to be the world’s highest-paid photographer). In 2003, he received a national arts award for lifetime achievement.
Among his most recent exhibitions:
In 1994 the Whitney Museum in New York brought together fifty years of his work in the retrospective, "Richard Avedon: Evidence".
In 2001 the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, in Germany staged "Richard Avedon: in the american west". This exhibition showed, for the first time in Europe, the full sequence of 124 portraits of the working class people of the American West, which Avedon took between 1979 and 1984 on a commission from the amon carter museum in Fort Worth, Texas. http://www.kunstmuseum-wolfsburg.de
In 2002 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York featured approximately
180 works "Richard Avedon: portraits". He chose his subjects
among people who interested him, instead of photographing people
on commission. All were shot against a white background, without
any of the typical poses or smiling faces.
http://www.metmuseum.org
Avedon’s last assignment was in San Antonio, Texas, where he
took pictures for a piece called "On Democracy" for the new yorker.
he spent months on the project, shooting politicians, delegates
and citizens from around the country.
http://www.richardAvedon.com/editorial2004/newyorker
Books by richard Avedon:
"Observations" with text by Truman Capote (1959).
"Nothing personal" with text by James Baldwin (1964).
"Alice in the Wonderland: the forming of a company
"The making of a play", with text by Doon Arbus (1973).
"Portraits" (1976).
"Avedon: photographs 1947-1977 (1978).
"In the American West" (1985).
"An Autobiography" (1993).
"Evidence: 1944-1994" (1994).