Product Description

The definitive account of the life and work of Richard Avedon, to accompany a major retrospective of the photographic work at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #41406 in Books
• Published on: 1994-05-10
• Released on: 1994-05-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 183 pages

From Publishers Weekly
With a seeming disregard for genres, photographer Avedon applies the same compositional intelligence to animated fashion shots, nightmarish images of a state mental hospital, austere portraits of politicians, artists, writers, grainy images of drifters and factory workers. This catalogue of a retrospective at Manhattan's Whitney Museum contains many pictures that will be instantly recognizable to readers of Avedon's recent An Autobiography , but it also includes a lot of new, early and unfamiliar work. Defending Avedon against critics who charge him with cold manipulation or sensationalism, New Yorker art critic Gopnik views his work as part of a theatrical tradition in photography, a carefully orchestrated interpretation of late 20th-century life. Livingston, the exhibit's curator, provides a wide-angled critique of Avedon's opus from his 1940s studies of New York City's Central Park to recent portraits of Alabama governor George Wallace, NYC black activist Rev. Al Sharpton and gays in the military.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This large-format book reproduces Avedon's work to the highest standards, documenting his 50 years as a fashion and portrait photographer. Livingston presents a chronology and analysis of his work; Gopnik contributes a thorough biographical essay. With his brutally frank photographic style, Avedon (An Autobiography, LJ 10/15/93) influenced a generation of photographers. Either in his studio or on commission from major illustrated magazines, Avedon seems to have photographed nearly every notable celebrity of the 20th century. His images of everyday people are equally powerful, as exemplified by a series from Vietnam in 1971 and one on drifters and unemployed Americans. The book has a unique design, simultaneously providing an illustrated checklist of the 50-year retrospective exhibit at the Whitney Museum on which the book is based and an illustrated chronology of Avedon's life and work. Those interested in Avedon's career or in the fine arts will want this book, which supplements and interprets the Whitney exhibit. Highly recommended.
Kathleen Collins, New York Transit Museum Archives, Brooklyn
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Essays by Jane Livingston, curator of the Whitney Museum exhibit of the photos in this volume, and New Yorker art critic Adam Gopnik accompany more than 500 black-and-white photographs and color illustrations. Whether he's shooting lowly American drifters or the giant celebrities of the age, Avedon can make the human figure, particularly the face, look like something that the eye has never encountered before. A two-page spread of selected contact prints of the concert pianist and wit Oscar Levant is thoroughly terrifying--and impossible not to stare at. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Useful roadmap to Avedon's work
I'm glad that I own this book but potential buyers should be aware that this is a history of Avedon's work, not a stunning presentation of his photographs. The book contains hundreds of images but most of them are small in size. The images are arranged chronologically with some associated text. The book also contains two essays about Avedon and a detailed bibliography listing press accounts about him. There is also a helpful list of the various books that Avedon has published.

I would recommend his other titles -- "In the American West" for example -- if you want to see the full-size, stunning photographs for which Avedon is famous.

Absolutely terrific
This is a wonderful collection. I have found myself going back to it again and again. I'm not sure Adam Gopnik was such a good choice, although he is a lively writer; but the other New Yorker art critic, Peter Schejhal (sp?) would certainly have been better, as entertaining as Gopnik but more focused and memorable. But this is just a small complaint; overall, I love this book and hope that every library in the world someday owns a copy.

An Autobiogarphy in pictures
You want to see the best of Richard Avedon's photography? Well this is the book for you, no doubt