Richard Avedon Biography
Richard Avedon (New York, May 15, 1923 – San Antonio, October 1, 2004) was an American photographer and portraitist, famous for his countless black and white portraits. He worked in various fields, from reportage to fashion, from the orphans of Danang during the Vietnam War to portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Janis Joplin, Brigitte Bardot, Andy Warhol and Sophia Loren. His career as a photographer began in the Merchant Navy: assigned to autopsies and identity photos, he took portraits of his bunkmates. In 1944 he joined the group of the fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar, in which he remained for twelve years, changing the concept of photography in fashion, placing models, usually stiff in their pose, on the street or in nightclubs. He later worked for Vogue, Life, Mademoiselle, Gianni Versace, Jil Sander, Hugo Boss, Calvin Klein, Christian Dior and Clairol, specializing in portraits. In 1974 he exhibited some portraits of his father devoured by cancer at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MOMA). He collaborated with prestigious magazines such as The New Yorker and Rolling Stone. He created the 1995 and 1997 editions of the prestigious Pirelli calendar. In 1979 he undertook a five-year journey to the Western part of America. Along the way Avedon took large format photographs of the American working class which he collected in the book "In the American West". In 2004 he died following complications following a brain hemorrhage. Avedon's works are exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, in the Center Georges Pompidou in Paris and in many other museums and exhibitions around the world.
