Menu
f t g

In addition to straightforward fashion shoots, which secured the financial basis of his practice, Avedon left a collection of impressive shoots of public figures to illustrate magazine articles and a fascinating panorama of the cultural and political elites of America as well as the everyday life of anonymous people in the streets of southern Italy and New York. Celebrated as one of the most important and influential photographers of the second half of the twentieth century, Richard Avedon (1923–2004) worked for ‘Harper’s Bazaar’ from 1945 to 1965, the period in which the photographer was most active and productive. Already early on, his theatrically staged, yet strikingly dynamic images of the key fashion trends and celebrities of the time captured and defined the ‘look’ of the moment. In 1966 he joined ‘Vogue’ where he held the position of staff photographer until 1990. From 1980 he photographed the annual advertising campaigns for Gianni Versace; from 1985 he worked for the French magazine ‘Egoïste’, from 1992 for ‘The New Yorker’. RICHARD AVEDON. MURALS AND PORTRAITS is on view at Museum Brandhorst in Germany from July 17th, 2014. Images courtesy: Museum Brandhorst.

Another early interest was the everyday life of anonymous people in the streets of southern Italy and New York. Avedon’s reportage-like series, which remained unpublished for decades, bear witness to the photographer’s social commitment which led him to champion the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Richard Avedon, Bob Dylan, singer, New York City, February 10, 1965, 1965, gelatin silver print, 14 x 10,9 inches, Udo and Anette Brandhorst Collection © 2014 The Richard Avedon Foundation.

RICHARD AVEDON. MURALS AND PORTRAITS presents a selection of poignant portraits, the earliest of which date to the 1950s. The broad spectrum ranges from Francis Bacon, Brigitte Bardot and Samuel Beckett to Truman Capote, Bob Dylan and Marcel Duchamp, as well as Marilyn Monroe, Buster Keaton and Ezra Pound. The physicist Robert Oppenheimer and the Governor of Alabama, George Wallace, mark the extremes of the political spectrum of the American Civil Rights conflict. Richard Avedon, Marilyn Monroe, actress, New York City, May 6, 1957, 1957, gelatin silver print, 19,9 x 15,9 inches, Udo and Anette Brandhorst Collection © 2014 The Richard Avedon Foundation.

Against the backdrop of America’s social and political upheavals, from 1969 to 1971 Avedon embarked on the production of four large-scale photographic murals that occupy a key position in the history of the medium. Between 6.5 and 10 metres wide and 2.5 to more than 3 metres in height, the pictures present the sitters – some of them larger than life – positioned frontally and lined up against a stark white backcloth. Richard Avedon, The Mission Council, Saigon, South Vietnam, April 28, 1971, 1975, gelatin silver print, 119,5 x 390,1 inches, Udo and Anette Brandhorst Collection © 2014 The Richard Avedon Foundation.

‘The Mission Council’ (28 April 1971) was made in Saigon during the Vietnam War and shows the commander of the American Forces and a group of government officials from Washington D.C. Richard Avedon, Andy Warhol and members of The Factory: Andy Warhol, artist; Paul Morrissey, director; Joe Dallesandro, actor; Candy Darling, actor, New York, May 21, 1970, 1993, gelatin silver print, 34 x 42 inches, Udo and Anette Brandhorst Collection © 2014 The Richard Avedon Foundation.

Richard Avedon, Samuel Beckett, writer, Paris, France, April 13, 1979, 1993, gelatin silver print, 48,5 x 75,8 inches, Udo and Anette Brandhorst Collection © 2014 The Richard Avedon Foundation.

Between 1979 and 1984 Avedon travelled through seventeen states of the American West and took pictures of miners, farmers, factory workers, vagrants and socially marginalised people. The series ‘In the American West’ vividly captures the demise of the oil and coal production and other sectors of the economy. ‘In the American West’ shows the flipside of the great American Dream, but the series also bears witness to the pride and dignity of the sitters in the face of hardship and scant hope for a better future. Richard Avedon, Mike Bencich, Dan Ashberger, Coal Miners, Somerset, Colorado, August 29, 1980, 1984-85, gelatin silver print, 59,6 x 47,1 inches, Udo and Anette Brandhorst Collection © 2014 The Richard Avedon Foundation.

Photographed in black and white, the shadowless group portraits are notable for their rigorous clarity and unflinching objectivity that seem to undermine the aesthetic autonomy of the works, so that they are not instantly perceived as art. Their powerful impact is primarily the result of the intensity and immediacy of the confrontation between the viewer and the photographs – or rather the people shown in them. Richard Avedon, The Mission Council, Saigon, South Vietnam, April 28, 1971, 1975, gelatin silver print, 119,5 x 390,1 inches, Udo and Anette Brandhorst Collection © 2014 The Richard Avedon Foundation.