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  • Photographer
  • Author
· American · 1923–2004

Richard Avedon

American photographer; a high-school classmate of James Baldwin and his collaborator on the 1964 book Nothing Personal.

1 book on our shelves

Details

Lived
1923–2004
Born
1923
Died
2004
Nationality
American
Roles
PhotographerAuthor

Selected works

Cataloged from the holding institutions' records. Reproductions appear only where the rights are verified.

Photographs

Eight people along a carved bar with a tall mirrored back fitting and rows of stemmed glasses. A woman with a high topknot stands at the centre in a beaded dress with a jewelled collar, bubble hem and long white gloves, one hand raised to her hair. A man beside her wears a dark tuxedo, a pale wide-brimmed hat, spectacles and a lit cigar. At the left a woman perches on a stool in a pale suit with an enormous stand-away collar while a man leans towards her; at the right a woman arches backwards over a stool as a man leans over her; a barman in a bow tie stands behind the counter

Artwork reproduction

Photograph

Audrey Hepburn and Art Buchwald, with Simone D'Aillencourt, Frederick Eberstadt, Barbara Mullen, and Dr. Reginald Kernan, evening dresses by Balmain, Dior, and Patou, Maxim's, Paris, August 1959

August 1959 · Gelatin silver print

Eight people are arranged along a carved and mirrored bar, three of them women in pale evening clothes held in postures no one would hold at rest. Audrey Hepburn stands at the centre in a beaded dress with a jewelled collar, and the columnist Art Buchwald is beside her in a wide pale hat with a cigar. Richard Avedon made the photograph at Maxim's in Paris in August 1959.

Richard Avedon, Audrey Hepburn and Art Buchwald, with Simone D'Aillencourt, Frederick Eberstadt, Barbara Mullen, and Dr. Reginald Kernan, evening dresses by Balmain, Dior, and Patou, Maxim's, Paris, August 1959, August 1959. Image © the rights holder, shown under fair use.

A woman in a full dark coat is caught in mid-air above a wet Paris street, both feet off the ground, the trailing foot pointed behind her. She holds a large black umbrella open and tilted back above her head, wears a small dark cap set back on her hair and dark gloves, and a dark angular bag hangs from the hand gripping the umbrella. Out-of-focus Haussmann buildings and a pale parked van stand behind her under a blank white sky, with a kerb and a puddle in the foreground

Artwork reproduction

Photograph

Carmen (Homage to Munkasci), Coat by Cardin, Place François-Premier, Paris, August 1957

August 1957, printed 1978 · Gelatin silver print

A woman in a dark coat is caught in mid-air above a wet Paris street, both feet clear of the ground, holding a large black umbrella open behind her head. Richard Avedon made the photograph in the place François-Premier in August 1957 and named it for another photographer. The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds this print as 1979.512.4.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Richard Avedon, Carmen (Homage to Munkasci), Coat by Cardin, Place François-Premier, Paris, August 1957, August 1957, printed 1978. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image © the rights holder, shown under fair use.

A woman in a long black evening dress with a white satin sash stands between three elephants on a floor of straw. Her head is tipped back with her eyes closed, her left palm rests flat on the nearest elephant's lower jaw, and her right arm reaches out level to a second elephant without touching it. The nearest animal's trunk is raised and curled at the tip, a chain is shackled to the right-hand elephant's foreleg, and a plain pale wall stands behind them

Artwork reproduction

Photograph

Dovima with Elephants, Evening Dress by Dior, Cirque d'Hiver, Paris

August 1955, printed 1979 · Gelatin silver print

A woman in a black evening dress stands between three elephants, one hand flat against the nearest animal's jaw and the other reaching towards a second without touching it. Richard Avedon made the photograph at the Cirque d'Hiver in Paris in August 1955, on assignment for Harper's Bazaar. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this print as 2014.680; the Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a much larger one.

Art Institute of Chicago

Richard Avedon, Dovima with Elephants, Evening Dress by Dior, Cirque d'Hiver, Paris, August 1955, printed 1979. Art Institute of Chicago. Image © the rights holder, shown under fair use.

A woman in a pale off-the-shoulder evening gown of fine pleated bands sits at a small round nightclub table with a white cloth, laughing with her head tipped back, long gloves ruched down her forearms and her gloved hands folded in her lap. A man in a dark dinner jacket beside her raises a stemmed glass towards the camera. Behind them two chorus dancers in white ruffled costumes kick high and are blurred by movement, under a dark ceiling scattered with small lights and a row of large globe lamps, with two seated spectators in the foreground seen from behind

Artwork reproduction

Photograph

Suzy Parker and Robin Tattersall, evening dress by Grès, Moulin Rouge, Paris, August 1957

August 1957 · Gelatin silver print

A woman in a pale pleated evening dress sits at a small nightclub table, laughing with her head tipped back, while a chorus line kicks in the blurred distance behind her. A man in a dinner jacket raises a glass beside her. Richard Avedon made the photograph in Paris in August 1957, during the couture collections.

Richard Avedon, Suzy Parker and Robin Tattersall, evening dress by Grès, Moulin Rouge, Paris, August 1957, August 1957. Image © the rights holder, shown under fair use.

A man in a dark three-piece suit and a woman in a full flecked tweed coat skate across a wide paved square on four-wheel roller skates, hands joined, laughing at each other. He leans steeply back with one arm flung out and one skate lifted; she wears a pale hat set far back, dark gloves and dark ankle socks, and a long tweed stole streams out horizontally behind her. Two matching colonnaded palace fronts, a tall ornate lamp standard and a row of parked 1950s cars stand behind them under a flat pale sky

Artwork reproduction

Photograph

Suzy Parker and Robin Tattersall, coat by Dior, Place de la Concorde, Paris, August 1, 1956

1 August 1956 · Gelatin silver print

A man and a woman skate across the Place de la Concorde on clamp-on roller skates, laughing at each other with their hands joined. She wears a full tweed coat by Dior with a long stole flying out horizontally behind her. Richard Avedon dated the photograph to 1 August 1956, at the start of the Paris couture season.

Richard Avedon, Suzy Parker and Robin Tattersall, coat by Dior, Place de la Concorde, Paris, August 1, 1956, 1 August 1956. Image © the rights holder, shown under fair use.

People Richard Avedon Knew

Relationships with other people, with sources for each connection.

Illustrated portrait of Audrey Hepburn

Audrey Hepburn

  • Actor

Collaborated with

Avedon was hired as special visual consultant on Funny Face (1957), whose story was drawn from his own early career and whose photographer, played by Fred Astaire, carries a version of his name. He designed the opening titles, took the photographs the film treats as Avery's, and worked with Stanley Donen on the montage of Hepburn photographed across Paris.

— Margarita Landazuri, Funny Face

Illustrated portrait of James Baldwin

James Baldwin

  • Author
  • Playwright
  • Critic
  • +1

Collaborated with

Classmates on the Magpie editorial board at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. In 1964 they published Nothing Personal, Avedon's photographs alongside Baldwin's text on American identity in the civil rights era.

— Back to School with the Berg Collection (2023); Richard Avedon, Members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Atlanta, Georgia (object 2018.40)

Books by Richard Avedon

Cover of Nothing Personal by James Baldwin, Richard Avedon

Nothing Personal

James Baldwin, Richard Avedon1964

Essays & criticism

James Baldwin and the photographer Richard Avedon had been at the same Bronx high school. Thirty years later they made a book about what America looked like in 1964.

4.1

Connections and Sources

Richard Avedon’s connections to people, places, and works, with the sources behind each one.

Collaborated with

Audrey Hepburn

Avedon was hired as special visual consultant on Funny Face (1957), whose story was drawn from his own early career and whose photographer, played by Fred Astaire, carries a version of his name. He designed the opening titles, took the photographs the film treats as Avery's, and worked with Stanley Donen on the montage of Hepburn photographed across Paris.

— Margarita Landazuri, Funny Face

Collaborated with

James Baldwin

Classmates on the Magpie editorial board at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. In 1964 they published Nothing Personal, Avedon's photographs alongside Baldwin's text on American identity in the civil rights era.

— Back to School with the Berg Collection (2023); Richard Avedon, Members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Atlanta, Georgia (object 2018.40)

References

References

The sources below include biographies, scholarly essays, interviews, and primary materials that informed this page. They reflect both the historical record and ongoing critical conversations about Richard Avedon and their work.

  1. 1Back to School with the Berg Collection

    Website
    The New York Public Library, 2023
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the Richard Avedon page.

    View source

  2. 2Richard Avedon, Members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Atlanta, Georgia (object 2018.40)

    Website
    The Metropolitan Museum of Art
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the Richard Avedon page.

    View source

  1. 3Funny Face

    Website
    Turner Classic Movies
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the Richard Avedon page.

    View source

  2. 4Richard Avedon — biography

    Website
    The Richard Avedon Foundation
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the Richard Avedon page.

    View source
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Why these sources are here

These references anchor the page in the documented record and in the scholarly conversations around Richard Avedon. Every claim on this page traces back to one or more of the works listed here.

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