CursumPerficio

My journey ends here chemin...

AVEDON Richard

Date of birth : May 15, 1923, New York.
Date of death : October 1st, 2004, San Antonio, Texas.

Portrait

;

Story

Son of Russian immigrants.
He studied at the Columbia University, New York, then devoted himself to photography, self-teaching.

In 1944, he met Alexei Brodovitch, the famous art director of Harper's Bazaar magazine, where he worked for

many years (

).

In 1959, the publication of his book "Observations" had an important effect.
Brodovitch had done the page setting and Truman Capote had written the text.
The book mainly contained personalities portraits and a few fashion pictures. The complete lack of deference of this photographer's portraits, who, on white background, made the beings closeness flood in, for the first time payed the public and the art members attention.
His fashion pictures, in which he commuted his personal view of a pictures living world, close to life, provided him a huge publicity. He actually broke up with the studio photography by leading his models in the streets of Paris, the bars and follies.
Avedon's fashion pictures, which through the years decreased more and more, and in the 1970' came close to the portrait photography, became a reference for a whole photographers generation.
Shortly after, he caused a scandal with a serie about the slow agony of his father, Jacob Israel Avedon.
In this serie which is also a document about his relationship with his father, he ripped him off some comical expressions and looks he had seen during his youth, and had impregnated his own image of a father figure.
But it is also an upsetting serie about the slow deterioration of a strong personality ans his retirement itself.

In his book « In the American West », he wanted to break the American Wild West myth, the one of a smooth and idyllic world of cow-boys, and show another aspect, the one of unemployed and underemployed, Whites, Blacks, South-Americans. The pathetic image he gave about the American West caused indignation and was felt as pernicious. Followed a serie about the Louisiana State Hospital, a succession of pictures of mentally ill people, and also another one about the Napalm victims, a bitter indictment against the Vietnam war.

These are the only Avedon's pictures showing violence; he had always refused it, considering that violent images caused violence too.

His big sizes on cloth went down in the photography history. It was among others, portraits of the members of the "Warhol Factory", the "Chicago Seven", the "Ginsberg Family" and the "Mission Council".

Among his portraits, the "Generals of the Daughters of the American Revolution" in 1963, had an important place. Avedon had made there a portrait about a group composed in a bizarre way. This picture, which was obviously the preliminary study of an official group portrait, fascinated with this strange composition and the various relationships between the people who, while isolated, maintained to each other.

Also unsual was Charlie Chaplin's portrait where he imitated the devil ().

His realisation answered Chaplin's own desire, who wanted to express his combative inclination when he was forced to leave the United States, because of his political engagement.

The Ezra Pound's portrait, absorbed in himself, in a rather painful concentration (,) was the masterpiece of a serie in which the writer, facing the camera, revealed, while he expressed with gestures, the whole amplitude of his sensations and feelings.

The fall of the Berlin wall was for Avedon, the occasion to photograph the jubilant crowd during the New Year's Eve 1989. In this serie, the "Brandenburg Gate", the faces expressions ran from the enthusiastic joyfulness to the future anxious understanding. As a symbol, Avedon set on the place of the reporting, a small selection of constellations which, reduced to the outline of a bald head, peaked in the night sky.

Then he took pictures of the Italian aristocracy in which, for the first time and in a rather large part, he used the photomontage.
It was only in his retrospective in 1994, that makes us remember that photo essay was also something he had used when he started.

Avedon is considered as one of the best photographers. Only in New York, many exhibitions had been given at the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

The Ludwig Museum in Cologne showed in 1994 a great retrospective and also his fashion pictures.

Other pictures

In 1944, he married the actress Dorcas Marie Nowell (Doe Avedon). They divorced in 1949.

In 1951, he married Evelyn Franklin (

); first childhood lover then Milton Greene's wife until 1949. They had a son John F.Avedon (October 21, 1952).

Link with Marilyn

September 1st, 1954, picture session for Harper's Bazaar magazine, during the production of "The Seven Year Itch" (pictures taken by Sam Shaw)

With Richard Avedon

With Billy Wilder

With Earl Steinbicker, Avedon's assistant

March 9, 1955, he attended the premiere of "East of Eden" at the Astor Theatre, New York, and the following

party

May 6, 1957, he made the publicity pictures for "The Prince and the Showgirl" (1957) with Marilyn in New York

With a tiger toy

;

Rhinestone dress

;

Sofa

;

Session dated July 2, 1958

;

Telegrams sent to Marilyn

;

May 27, 1958, he made a session of Marilyn, interpreting the bigger sex-symbols of the 20th Century

Marlene Dietrich

Lilian Russell

;

Theda Bara

;

Jean Harlow

;

Clara Bow

Those pictures were published in an article "Fables Enchanteresses" in Life magazine, dated December 22, 1958.
Arthur Miller, at that time, Marilyn's husband, had written an article which went to the pictures, "My Wife Marilyn".

;

Avedon found easy to work with her : "She gave to the camera much more than any other actress - any other woman - I had the oppotunity to photograph; much more patient, more demanding with herself and more comfortable with the camera than out of the work sessions".

In 1959, he took publicity pictures of Marilyn for "Some Like It Hot"

Sequined dress