Richard Avedon

Richard Avedon (born May 15, 1923, New York, New York, U.S.—died October 1, 2004, San Antonio, Texas) was one of the leading 20th-century photographers, noted for the movement and spontaneity of his fashion photography and for portraits that emphasized the individuality of his subjects. During a career that spanned nearly 60 years, Avedon produced such celebrated images as Dovima with Elephants (1955), sensitive images of Marilyn Monroe (1957), monumental group portraits such as Andy Warhol and Members of the Factory (1969), and the stark images of workers and other subjects in the series In the American West (1979–84).

Early life

Avedon began to explore photography on his own at age 10 and was immediately drawn to portraiture. His early sitters included the Russian pianist-composer Sergey Rachmaninoff, who then lived in the same New York City apartment building as Avedon’s grandparents, as well as his younger sister, Louise Avedon. For much of her life, Louise experienced mental health issues and spent extended periods in psychiatric institutions. Avedon later connected her combination of beauty and emotional suffering to his own artistic development, particularly his interest in the tension between outward appearance and inner experience. He also acknowledged her lasting influence on the women he chose to photograph, recalling that “all the models that I was drawn to and the faces that I was drawn to were memories of my sister.”

Early career and fashion photography

Avedon practiced photography in the U.S. merchant marine (1942–44), where he took identification card pictures, and then he attended the New School for Social Research, New York City, studying with Alexey Brodovitch, the uncompromising art director of Harper’s Bazaar. He turned professional in 1945 and, with Brodovitch’s help, became a regular contributor to Harper’s Bazaar (1946–65). Early in his career, Avedon frequently took models out of the studio and photographed them in streets, nightclubs, circuses, beaches, and other unexpected places. These photographs brought greater movement, spontaneity, and narrative to fashion imagery, as in the 1956 photograph of American model Suzy Parker, wearing a Dior coat, and British model Robin Tattersall roller-skating in the Place de la Concorde, Paris. Avedon’s fashion photographs are also characterized by a strong black-and-white contrast that creates an effect of austere sophistication, even in such unlikely settings as the circus, as in Dovima with Elephants. The photograph shows the American model Dovima in a Dior evening gown elegantly posed amid elephants at the Cirque d’Hiver in Paris.

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Portraits

In Avedon’s portraits of actors, models, musicians, authors, artists, and other sitters, he created a sense of drama by using a stark, white background and eliciting a frontal, confrontational pose. In eliminating elaborate settings and props, Avedon focused attention on his subjects themselves—their gestures, clothing, expressions, and physical appearance. He applied the same direct approach to photographs of participants in the civil rights and antiwar movements, as well as to victims of the Vietnam War (1954–75). Major commissions included Rolling Stone’s The Family (1976), comprising 69 portraits of politicians, government officials, business leaders, lawyers, union figures, and others as well as the Amon Carter Museum’s In the American West (1979–84), featuring hundreds of portraits of miners, ranch hands, oil-field workers, and others.

Later career and advertising campaigns

Avedon later worked for Vogue (1966–90) and, in 1992, he became the first staff photographer at The New Yorker. Throughout his career, Avedon also shot major advertising campaigns, including Calvin Klein’s provocative 1980 ads featuring 15-year-old Brooke Shields in the designer’s jeans. Other clients included Revlon and Versace. His ability to move between editorial fashion, advertising, reportage, and fine-art portraiture helped erode the traditional distinction between commercial and art photography.

Personal life and death

Avedon also served as visual consultant for the motion picture Funny Face (1957), which was loosely based on his experiences as a fashion photographer and on his first marriage (1944–49) to model and actress Dorcas “Doe” Nowell. In 1951 he married Evelyn Franklin, with whom he had a son, John Avedon (born 1952). Evelyn experienced mental health issues throughout the marriage, and, though the couple separated in 1972, they remained married until Evelyn died in 2004, several months before Avedon. At age 81, he was still taking photographs and was on assignment for The New Yorker in San Antonio, Texas, when he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage.

Exhibitions and publications

Avedon’s first museum retrospective was held at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., in 1962, followed by major exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1978 and 2002) and the Whitney Museum of American Art (1994), both in New York City. Many of his photographs are collected in Observations (1959), with a text by Truman Capote; Nothing Personal (1964), with a text by James Baldwin; Portraits (1976); Avedon: Photographs, 1947–1977 (1978); In the American West, 1979–1984 (1985); An Autobiography (1993); Evidence: 1944–94 (1994); and The Sixties (1999). A documentary about Avedon’s life and career, directed by American filmmaker Ron Howard, premiered in 2026 at the Festival de Cannes, France, to favorable reviews.

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