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.
RICHARD AVEDON - CENTER FOR CREATIVE IMAGING
By Richard Avedon
Located in Portland, ME
Avedon, Richard. RICHARD AVEDON - CENTER FOR CREATIVE IMAGING. Poster, 1991. Signed in ink by Avedon. Captioned " Gordon Stevenson, drifter Interstate 90 Butte Montana...
Offset
Bianca Jagger - Photograph by Richard Avedon - 1978
By Richard Avedon
Located in Roma, IT
Fine Duotone Photolithograph, printed in 1978. Medium weight - satin/matte finish. Excellent condition. Certificate of authenticity on rear.
Photographic Paper
Les années 1940 (Stephanie Seymour: La Passante du Siecle)
By Richard Avedon
Located in Houston, TX
Richard Avedon Les années 1940 (Stephanie Seymour: La Passante du Siecle), 1997 Gelatin silver print 15 1/2 x 19 in (39.4 x 48.3 cm) Edition of 4 JPHB 5683
Silver Gelatin
Price Upon Request
Suzy Parker and Gardner McKay (Dress by Balmain), Café Des Beaux-Arts, Paris
By Richard Avedon
Located in New York, NY
Richard Avedon (1923-2004) Suzy Parker and Gardner McKay (Dress by Balmain), Café des Beaux-Arts, Paris, August 1956 1956/2001 Signed and numbered in pencil, verso Gelatin silver ...
Silver Gelatin
Elise Daniels, Turban by Paulette, Le Pré-Catelan, Paris
By Richard Avedon
Located in New York, NY
Signed by the photographer on the verso
Silver Gelatin
Price Upon Request
Marlene Dietrich, Turban by Dior, The Ritz, Paris, 1955
By Richard Avedon
Located in New York, NY
Signed by the photographer on the verso
Silver Gelatin
Twiggy, Hair by Ara Gallant, Paris Studio, January, 1968
By Richard Avedon
Located in New York, NY
Signed by the photographer
Silver Gelatin
Chanel Vertical, 1990
By Todd Burris
Located in Hudson, NY
Listing is for UNFRAMED print. Edition 1 of 15. CURRENT EXHIBITION - runs through September 4th, 2016. Any framed photographs purchased during the show will be available after September 4th. If the exhibition piece is sold or the customer orders a different print size, the photograph is produced upon purchase. Please allow two weeks for production. Shipping time depends on method of shipping. Price is subject to availability. The Robin Rice Gallery reserves the right to adjust this price depending on the current edition of the photograph. ABOUT: Since the early ‘90s, gallerist Robin Rice and designer Antony Todd...
Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Silver Gelatin
Ted Higby at Skyline Rodeo, 1928
Located in New York, NY
Listing includes framing with UV plexiglas, free shipping and a 14 day return policy. Ted Higby at Skyline Rodeo, 1928 15 x 12 inch gelatin silver print Image Size: 14 x 8.5 inches Frame size: 22.5 x 17.5 x 2 inches Edition of 15 Lora Webb Nichols was born in 1883 and grew up in the small mining town of Encampment, Wyoming. At the age of 16 Lora received her first camera and from that moment and for the next few decades she produced work that is both stunning in its singular voice and revealing in the world it opens up for us. At first Nichols photographed her family, friends, and the landscape around Encampment, but when the town experienced a copper mining boom Nichols expanded her scope to become a photographer for hire shooting portraits and industrial photographs. When the boom collapsed, Nichols took the risk of opening her own business in Encampment - The Rocky Mountain Studio - which opened in 1925. The studio ran for ten years, accumulating 24,000 negatives that illustrate the lives and environment of the people living in and around the town while creating a distinctive and surprising body of work. If one was to attempt an analogy – Nichols’ pictures fit somewhere between Lartigue and Lange - joyful and generous while objectively intimate. In particular what seems to distinguish Nichols’ work is the way she sees the world from a female perspective. As Vince Aletti...
Silver Gelatin
$5,000
H 11 in W 14 in
Eve Babitz and Marcel Duchamp playing chess during Duchamp's Pasadena Art Museum
By Julian Wasser
Located in New York, NY
Listing is for an unframed print and includes free shipping to the continental US and 14-day return policy. Julian Wasser Eve Babitz and Marcel Duchamp pl...
Photographic Paper, Silver Gelatin
Untitled Portrait
By Seydou Keïta
Located in New York, NY
Listing includes framing with UV Plexi ($900 value), free shipping, and a 14-day return policy. Seydou Keïta Untitled Portrait, 1952 - 1955 (02158) 23...
Photographic Film, Photographic Paper, Silver Gelatin
Bea with a whip at The Other Side
By Nan Goldin
Located in New York, NY
Nan Goldin Bea with a whip at The Other Side 1973 Gelatin silver print 14 x 11 inches; 36 x 28 cm Edition of 100 Signed, titled, dated, and numbered in graphite (lower right verso) ...
Silver Gelatin
$1,762
H 15 in W 11 in D 0.02 in
Lisa - Silver Gelatin print, Contemporary signed limited edition nude photo
By Ian Sanderson
Located in Sant Cugat del Vallès, Barcelona
‘ Lisa ' By Ian Sanderson, Silver Gelatin print, Fiber based Photography : 1989 A beautiful silver gelatin fibre based print produced in the darkroom directly from the negative. The ...
Silver
$350
H 16 in W 20 in D 0.02 in
Kirk Hutton 'Commissionaire's Dog' Archival Photograph by Getty, 16x20
Located in San Rafael, CA
A hotel commissionaire talking to a small dachshund dog in Piccadilly Circus, London. Original Publication: Picture Post - 2 - In The Heart of the Empire - pub. 1938 (Photo by Kurt H...
Photographic Paper
Joan Didion, Hollywood, 1968 (Frame 33a.)
By Julian Wasser
Located in New York, NY
This is a limited edition 16 x 20 inch print of Joan Didion by photographer Julian Wasser shot for her iconic interview with TIME in 1968. Listing includes free shipping to the continental US and a 14-day return policy. Please inquire for framing options or international shipments. We offer framing services through our New York location. Joan Didion by Julian Wasser Gelatin Silver Print Paper Size: 16 x 20 inches Image Size: 11.5 x 17.5 inches Edition 9 of 15 Signed and on the back by Julian Wasser and editioned on adhesive certificate History Behind the Photograph - Julian Wasser started his career in photography in the Washington DC bureau of the Associated Press where he met and accompanied the famous news photographer Weegee – who would become a lasting influence on him. In the mid-60s Wasser moved to Los Angeles as a contract photographer for TIME, LIFE, and FORTUNE magazines and becoming internationally known as the go to guy for getting candid but memorably composed photographs. (His iconic images of Jack Nicholson and Anjelica Huston; Marcel Duchamp and Eve Babitz...
Photographic Paper, Silver Gelatin
$3,525
H 15.75 in W 11.82 in
The Hair Willy Ronis Humanist black and white photography woman naked nude
By Willy Ronis
Located in Paris, FR
Willy Ronis is one of the most famous members of the French Humanist photography. Silver print on photographic paper Hand-signed by the artist lower right Stamp of the artist's stud...
Photographic Paper, Silver Gelatin
$3,525
H 9.45 in W 11.82 in
Nude Paris Willy Ronis 20th Century French Humanist photography black and white
By Willy Ronis
Located in Paris, FR
Willy Ronis is one of the most famous members of the French Humanist photography. Silver print on photographic paper Hand-signed by the artist lower right Stamp of the artist's stud...
Photographic Paper, Silver Gelatin
'Cheetah Who Shops' Archival Photograph by Getty, 20 x 24
Located in San Rafael, CA
American silent film actress Phyllis Gordon (1889 - 1964) window-shopping in Earls Court, London with her four-year-old cheetah who was flown to Britain from Kenya. (Photo by B C Par...
Photographic Paper
$3,349
H 29.53 in W 21.66 in D 0.08 in
China girl- Intimate signed limited edition sensual fine art print, Contemporary
By Ian Sanderson
Located in Sant Cugat del Vallès, Barcelona
China girl - Signed limited edition archival pigment print - Edition of 8 This image was captured on film in 1999. The negative was scanned creating a digital file which was t...
Photographic Film, Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, Black and White, ...
"Friends in Deed"
By Richard Avedon
Located in Astoria, NY
Richard Avedon (American, 1923-2004), "Friends in Deed", Gelatin Silver Print, 1999, signed in ink and dated lower right, wood frame. Image: 9.75" H x 7.75" W; frame: 18" H x 15.5" W...
Silver Gelatin
Sold
H 9.73 in Dm 7.49 in
Marilyn Monroe for "Some Like It Hot, shooting", USA, 1958
By Richard Avedon
Located in Cologne, DE
Norma Jeane Mortenson or better known as Marilyn Monroe – iconic, beautiful and maybe the most known Hollywood Stars of the 20th century. Born and raised in Los Angeles, USA, she spe...
Black and White
The Beatles, Richard Avedon
By Richard Avedon
Located in New York, NY
This portfolio of four individual offset lithographs in color are from the first printing dating to 1967. It is the age and condition that makes this such a rare find, each print me...
Lithograph, Offset
The Beatles, Richard Avedon
By Richard Avedon
Located in New York, NY
This portfolio of four individual offset lithographs in color are from the first printing dating to 1967. It is the age and condition that makes this such a rare find, each print me...
Lithograph, Offset
The Beatles, Richard Avedon
By Richard Avedon
Located in New York, NY
This portfolio of four individual offset lithographs in color are from the first printing dating to 1967. It is the age and condition that makes this such a rare find, each print me...
Lithograph, Offset
The Beatles, Richard Avedon
By Richard Avedon
Located in New York, NY
This portfolio of four individual offset lithographs in color are from the first printing dating to 1967. It is the age and condition that makes this such a rare find, each print me...
Lithograph, Offset
Beatles Lithographs
By Richard Avedon
Located in Mount Pleasant, SC
Richard Avedon, Beatles Psychedelic Photograph (1967) on Linen, Set of 4, Printed for Stern Magazine/Germany. Image size is 21x29.
Lithograph
Beatles Lithographs
By Richard Avedon
Located in Mount Pleasant, SC
Richard Avedon, Beatles Psychedelic Photograph (1967) on Linen, Set of 4, Printed for Stern Magazine/Germany. Image size is 21x29.
Lithograph
The Beatles, Richard Avedon
By Richard Avedon
Located in New York, NY
This portfolio of four individual offset lithographs in color are from the first printing dating to 1967. It is the age and condition that makes this such a rare find, each print me...
Lithograph, Offset
Joe Babbington, Caterer
By Richard Avedon
Located in New York, NY
Gelatin silver print (Edition of 50) Signed and numbered, verso This photograph is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. Price includes matting and framing. Although Richard Avedon’s celebrated fashion photographs have graced the pages of Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, and Life, the artist primarily referred to himself as a portrait photographer. Avedon’s fashion shots are profoundly dramatic and dynamic, often capturing the model in motion. Along with his own acquaintances and various ordinary people, Avedon took photographs of celebrities, politicians, and other public figures ranging from Bertrand...
Silver Gelatin
Dr. Lothar Kalinowski, Psychiatrist
By Richard Avedon
Located in New York, NY
Gelatin silver print (Edition of 50) Signed and numbered, verso This photograph is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. Price includes matting and framing. Although Richard Avedon’s celebrated fashion photographs have graced the pages of Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, and Life, the artist primarily referred to himself as a portrait photographer. Avedon’s fashion shots are profoundly dramatic and dynamic, often capturing the model in motion. Along with his own acquaintances and various ordinary people, Avedon took photographs of celebrities, politicians, and other public figures ranging from Bertrand...
Silver Gelatin
The Beatles
By Richard Avedon
Located in New York, NY
This portfolio of four individual offset lithographs in color are from the first printing dating to 1967. It is the age and condition that makes this such a rare find, each print me...
Lithograph, Offset