Avedon became staff photographer for the New Yorker and created a project in 1995: In memory of the late Mr and Mrs Comfort.


A conversation with Richard Avedon at Charlie Rose. November 1, 1995.

The American West

The American West is a book that was published in 1985. The photographs were all portraits taken in the United States and the subjects are very different from his previous work. In older work he photographed famous people but in this book, his subjects are all workers. He wanted to photograph people ‘who work at hard, uncelebrated jobs . . . who are often ignored or overlooked’ (Wilson 2003).

I find these portraits amazing because Avedon captures his subjects emotions, their personality, real, exposed; and the simplicity of the background enhances the beauty of that and of who they are.  

I saw this picture in the exhibit I went on Avedon and fell in love with it. 

It is my favorite photograph of Avedon.

This is one of Avedon’s most famous shots.

Nothing Personal

Nothing personal is Avedon’s second book where he collaborated with James Baldwin who wrote the text that accompanied Avedon’s pictures.

James Baldwin and Avedon had known each other since High School where they both where editors for the school magazine. It is funny to think that two friends from high school both became famous artists, one in photography and the other in literature.

The book has been largely criticized because people find the photographs cruel. Richard Lacayo (2004) argued that the style of his portraits consisted of a white background where the subjects did not smile and where the light showed every detail of that person. He photographed all his subjects in that style but they were not cruel photographs, they were daring, down-to-earth and explicit.

I think the way the book is designed is very compelling.

 

Marilyn Monroe’s photograph has become very famous because we see a very different side of her than we usually see in her movies, on other photographs or in interviews. In The Christian Science Monitor (2002) they show perfectly how this picture’s mood was created by stating that:  

Marilyn Monroe performed - flirting, vamping, and dancing for the camera for
two hours in her self-created role as glamorous siren. But the frame Avedon
printed was snapped after she slumped, exhausted, in a chair. He transformed
her from va-va-voom into a melancholy baby.