The first years of the Master

Richard Avedon was born in 1923 in New York City. 

His parents emigrated from Russia to the United States and owned a clothes store for women, where Richard worked while growing up. Val (2004) points out that because of that ‘The world of women, their habits, preoccupations, gestures and desires was familiar to him from an early age’.

He attended De Witt High school from 1929 to 1941.

He got interested in photography from an early age, as he joined the YMHA’s camera club when he was twelve years old. 

He was also interested in literature and was co-editor of the school literary magazine, The Magpie, becoming friends with editor James Baldwin.

In 1941 he becomes poet laureate of the New York City High schools.

He studied for a little while philosophy at Columbia University and then joined the U.S. merchant marine. He was employed to take the soldiers’ ID pictures and that was his first job as a photographer.

In 1944 he decided to go study photography and landed at the Design Laboratory, New School for Social Research in New York City.