Photographer Richard Avedon Facts

Richard Avedon, 1923–2004, American Photographer

(1923-2004) was born and lived in New York City.

His interest in photography began at an early age

Joined the Young Men's Hebrew Association (YMHA) camera club when he was twelve years old.

Attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx,

Co-edited the school's literary magazine, The Magpie, with James Baldwin.

He was named Poet Laureate of New York City High Schools in 1941.

Avedon joined the armed forces in 1942 during World War II,

Serving as Photographer's Mate Second Class in the U.S. Merchant Marine.

My job was to do identity photographs. I must have taken pictures of one hundred thousand faces before it occurred to me I was becoming a photographer. " Richard Avedon

After the service becomes a Professional photographer, initially creating fashion images and studying with art director Alexey Brodovitch at the Design Laboratory of the New School for Social Research.

At the age of twenty-two worked as a freelance photographer, primarily for Harper's Bazaar.

Richard Avedon initially denied the use of a studio by the magazine, he photographed models and fashions on the streets, in nightclubs, at the circus, on the beach and at other uncommon locations,

He employed the resourcefulness and inventiveness that became a hallmark of his art.

Under Brodovitch's become the lead photographer for Harper Bazaar.

From the beginning of his career, Avedon made formal portraits for publication in Theater Arts, Life, Look, and Harper's Bazaar magazines, among many others.

He was fascinated by photography's capacity for suggesting the personality and evoking the life of his subjects.

I have registered poses, attitudes, hairstyles, clothing and accessories as vital, revealing elements of an image.

He had complete confidence in the two-dimensional nature of photography, the rules of which he felt to his stylistic and narrative purposes.

"My photographs do not go below the surface. I have great faith in surfaces. A good one is full of clues. " Richard Avedon

After guest-editing the April 1965 issue of Harper's Bazaar, Avedon quit the magazine after facing a storm of criticism over his collaboration with models of color.

1958 he was cited as one of the world’s 10 best photographers by Popular Photography.

1980 he received the National Magazine award for Visual Excellence

1985 he was named the American Society of Magazine Photographers’ Photographer of the Year.

I've joined Vogue, where I've worked for more than twenty years.

992, Avedon became the first staff photographer at The New Yorker

His portraiture helped redefine the aesthetic of the The New Yorker magazine.

Avedon ran a successful commercial studio and is widely credited with erasing the line between "art" and "commercial" photography.

His brand-defining work and long associations with Calvin Klein, Revlon, Versace, and dozens of other companies resulted in some of the best-known advertising campaigns in American history.

He is known for his extended portraiture of the American Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam war and a celebrated cycle of photographs of his father, Jacob Israel Avedon.

1976, for Rolling Stone magazine, I produced "The Family," a collective portrait of the American power elite at the time of the country's bicentennial election. From 1979 to 1985, I worked extensively on a commission from the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, ultimately producing the show and book In the American West.

Avedon's first museum retrospective was held at the Smithsonian Institution in 1962.

Amon Carter Museum of American Art ( 1985)

The Whitney Museum of American Art (1994).

His first book of photographs, Observations, with an essay by Truman Capote, was published in 1959.

Richard Avedon continued to publish books of his works throughout his life, including Nothing Personal in 1964 (with an essay by James Baldwin),

Portraits 1947-1977 (1978, with an essay by Harold Rosenberg), An Autobiography (1993),

Evidence 1944-1994 (1994, with essays by Jane Livingston and Adam Gopnik), and The Sixties (1999, with interviews by Doon Arbus).

After suffering a cerebral hemorrhage while on assignment for The New Yorker, Richard Avedon died in San Antonio, Texas on October 1, 2004.

Avedon also greatly admired the portrait photographs of the mid-nineteenth century, especially those by Nadar and by Julia Margaret Cameron.

During his lifetime, Avedon structured the Richard Avedon Foundation, a private operating foundation. It began its work shortly after his death in 2004. Based in New York, the foundation is the repository for Avedon’s photographs, negatives, publications, papers, and archival materials.

Books By Richard Avedon

The Kennedys: Portrait of a Family Oct 12, 2010

by Richard Avedon , Shannon Thomas Perich

In the American West Hardcover – 1985

by Laura Wilson (Author), Richard Avedon (Photographer)

Avedon Fashion 1944-2000 1st Edition

by Carol Squiers (Author), Vincent Aletti (Author), Philippe Garner (Author), Willis Hartshorn (Author), Richard Avedon (Photographer)

An Autobiography Richard Avedon Hardcover – September 13, 1993

Woman in the Mirror 1st Edition

by Richard Avedon (Photographer), Anne Hollander (Introduction)

The Sixties 1st Edition

by Doon Arbus (Author), Richard Avedon (Photographer)

Quotes By Richard Avedon

All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.

My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph.

I think all art is about control - the encounter between control and the uncontrollable.

Lessons Richard Avedon Has Taught Me About Street Photography

Your photos are more about yourself (than your subject)

It is OK to create controversy.

Photographing people looking their best or not is OK.

Manipulating subjects is OK.

Capturing people when they feel vulnerable is good.

Photography vs reportage/journalism.

Photography being invasive.

On never being satisfied with you work.

On choosing faces - find good ones to work with.

The Work — The Richard Avedon Foundation

https://www.avedonfoundation.org/the-work

The following is a small selection from the thousands of photographs that Richard Avedon took over the course of his sixty-year career. 

Richard Avedon American Photographer

https://www.pinterest.com/kennethpurdom/richard-avedon-american-photographer/