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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,' he said in 1970.

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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.

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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

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