Richard Avedon-Nastassja Kinski and the Serpent-24.5" x 35.75"-Poster-1981
View Similar Items
Richard AvedonRichard Avedon-Nastassja Kinski and the Serpent-24.5" x 35.75"-Poster-19811981
1981
About the Item
- Creator:Richard Avedon (1923-2004, American)
- Creation Year:1981
- Dimensions:Height: 24.5 in (62.23 cm)Width: 35.75 in (90.81 cm)
- Medium:
- Period:
- Condition:A-: Near Mint, very light signs of handling.
- Gallery Location:Brooklyn, NY
- Reference Number:Seller: YY60091stDibs: LU129415233001
Richard Avedon
A while back, Richard Avedon had a confession to make. “I hate cameras,” said the man who revolutionized fashion and portrait photography. “If I could only work with my eyes alone!”
Yet Avedon’s photos seem to do just that — they remove the distance the camera lens creates to make you feel that you are right there beside his subjects.
Born in New York City in 1923, Avedon had a stern father, an artistic mother and a beautiful, but troubled, sister. At 18, he wanted to be a poet. And the slight, 5’7” dreamer didn’t lack confidence — or a sense of drama. “I know my drifting will not prove a loss / For mine is a rolling stone that has gathered moss,” he wrote in 1941.
A year later, Avedon joined the Merchant Marines, where he spent his World War II years shooting ID photos of new recruits. “I must have taken pictures of 100,000 faces before it occurred to me I was becoming a photographer,” he later recalled.
After demobilization in 1944, Avedon shot fashion pictures for the tony Manhattan department store Bonwit Teller and studied with Alexey Brodovitch, the legendary art director of Harper’s Bazaar. By 1945, his work was appearing in Junior Bazaar.
“His first photographs for us were technically very bad,” Brodovitch later recalled. “But they were not snapshots. . . . Those first pictures of his had freshness and individuality, and they showed enthusiasm and a willingness to take chances.”
Who else was willing to take chances? Brodovitch and Carmel Snow, editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar, who soon sent the young talent to fashion’s sacred capital, Paris.
The postwar years were hard in Paris. When Avedon first arrived there, in 1946, it was with an explicit directive from Snow. “Dick was tasked with this idea that he was there to rebuild Paris,” explains Martin. In restoring the energy and excitement around Paris, Avedon imbued it with some of his own.
Avedon’s models jumped, twirled, leapt over puddles and they smiled. Like Avedon himself, they rarely stood still. While he wasn’t the first to use action in fashion photography (in the 1930s, Martin Munkacsi and Toni Frissell began creating fashion images of women engaged in sporty scenarios), Avedon was the first to pair such vitality with women wearing couture.
Character and spirit became la mode. Dovima’s graceful silhouette juxtaposed against the wrinkled heft of two shackled elephants. Dorian Leigh laughing and embracing a bicycle racer. Suzy Parker roller skating across the Place de la Concorde. Sunny Harnett and her cool gaze just daring the roulette table — and every man in the room — not to do her bidding. There was always a narrative in an Avedon mise en scène — whether the background was elaborately staged or stark, the model’s job had forever changed from posing, to acting.
Of course, Avedon did not limit himself to fashion photography. The little boy who once collected autographs grew up to create the most iconic portraits of the 20th century, many of these were included in an exhibition at Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton, New York, in 2017.
A 1958 New Yorker profile noted that even though Avedon’s portraits immortalized cultural elites such as Truman Capote, Elsa Maxwell and Charles Laughton, the qualities that most interested the photographer were “advanced age, physical debility, ugliness, or the pathos underlying the surface insouciance.” Yet “none of Avedon’s subjects seem to resent this kind of treatment . . . being selected to sit for one of his Harper’s Bazaar portraits ranks as an accolade.”
Over the next 40-plus years of his career, his iconic portraiture never lost its force; although at times, his unvarnished truth felt cruel.
But Avedon was a creator, not an observer, and he made no apologies for this. The sitter and the photographer “have separate ambitions for the image,” he wrote in 1985. “His need to plead his case probably goes as deep as my need to plead mine, but the control is with me.”
Find original Richard Avedon photography on 1stDibs.
- Woldgate, The Arrival of SpringBy (after) David HockneyLocated in Brooklyn, NYWoldgate, 6-7 May from The Arrival of Spring in 2013-33.5" x 24.5"-Poster-2015-Pop Art-GrayCategory
2010s Pop Art Prints and Multiples
MaterialsOffset
- Corbusier Chair and Rug-By (after) David HockneyLocated in Brooklyn, NYFirst edition Exhibition Poster for David Hockney at Andre Emmerich, New York, 1969, reprinted by Petersburg Press, 1981, featuring Courbusier C...Category
20th Century Pop Art Prints and Multiples
MaterialsOffset
- 1985 After Paul Jenkins 'Phenomena' Abstract Multicolor Israel Offset LithographBy Paul JenkinsLocated in Brooklyn, NYPaper Size: 26.25 x 32.5 inches ( 66.675 x 82.55 cm ) Image Size: 22.75 x 32.75 inches ( 57.785 x 83.185 cm ) Framed: No Condition: B-: Good Condition, Signs of Handling and Age Supp...Category
1980s Prints and Multiples
MaterialsOffset
- 2002 After Pablo Picasso 'Woman in an Armchair'By Pablo PicassoLocated in Brooklyn, NYPaper Size: 35 x 22.5 inches ( 88.9 x 57.15 cm ) Image Size: 22.5 x 17.75 inches ( 57.15 x 45.085 cm ) Framed: No Condition: A: Mint Additional Details: Poster for exhibition h...Category
Early 2000s Cubist Prints and Multiples
MaterialsOffset
$100 Sale Price20% Off - 1991 After Richard Artschwager 'At Castelli's' Brown Offset LithographBy Richard ArtschwagerLocated in Brooklyn, NYPaper Size: 37.5 x 24 inches ( 95.25 x 60.96 cm ) Image Size: 37.5 x 24 inches ( 95.25 x 60.96 cm ) Framed: No Condition: A: Mint Additional Details: Exhibition held at Leo Cas...Category
1990s Contemporary Prints and Multiples
MaterialsOffset
$60 Sale Price20% Off - After Utagawa Hiroshige-Towboats Along the Yotsugi-Dori Canal-PosterBy Utagawa HiroshigeLocated in Brooklyn, NYPaper Size: 67.75 x 38.5 inches ( 172.085 x 97.79 cm ) Image Size: 57.5 x 38.5 inches ( 146.05 x 97.79 cm ) Framed: No Condition: B-: Good Condition, Signs of Handling and Age Supple...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Prints and Multiples
MaterialsOffset
- Against Apartheid - Africa, Light, NightBy Julio Le ParcLocated in Köln, DEThis work by Le Parc from 1983 is part of the portfolio "Against Apartheid". In this year, many renowned artists decided to create a portfolio of printmaking works to set a sign against the Apartheid. There was also a touring exhibition. The complete project was supported by the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid. Please scroll through our seller storefront...Category
1980s Contemporary Landscape Prints
MaterialsLithograph, Offset
Price Upon Request - Against Apartheid - Portrait, Nelson Mandela, AfricaLocated in Köln, DEThis work by le Brocquy from 1983 is part of the portfolio "Against Apartheid". The works is a portrait of Nelson Mandela. In this year, many renowned artists decided to create a portfolio of printmaking works to set a sign against the Apartheid. There was also a touring exhibition. The complete project was supported by the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid. Please scroll through our seller storefront...Category
1980s Contemporary Portrait Prints
MaterialsOffset, Lithograph
- Little BoodgeBy David HockneyLocated in London, GBOffset lithograph on wove paper. Published in 1993. Copyright © David Hockney, verso.Category
1990s Contemporary Animal Prints
MaterialsLithograph, Offset
- The Endless Life of People, 2010By Yayoi KusamaLocated in New York, NYExcellent condition, as issued. This work is from an edition of unknown size. Stamped text on reverse with artists printed name and copyright from the Matsumoto City Museum of Art,...Category
2010s Prints and Multiples
MaterialsLithograph, Offset
Price Upon Request - Tom Sachs Space Program MARS sticker, 2012 (sold out)By Tom SachsLocated in New York, NYTom Sachs Space Program MARS sticker, 2012 vinyl sticker produced by Diecut Stickers, Seattle, WA 3 inches diameter (8 cm diameter) Open editionCategory
2010s Prints and Multiples
MaterialsOffset
- Georg Herold DUPLICATE PrintLocated in Lake Worth Beach, FLAdditional Information: Provenance: Brooke Alexander Gallery, New York, New York. Marking(s); notes: no marking(s) apparent; 1989 (per portfolio details) Country of origin; materia...Category
1980s Contemporary Abstract Prints
MaterialsOffset