Richard Avendon

 Richard Avedon was born in New York City on May 15, 1923 and pasted away on October 1, 2004. His family is Jewish. He attended Dewitt Clinton High School in the  Bronx, Where he worked on the school news paper. He attended Columbia University and after a while being there he started as a photographer for Merchant Marines in 1942. His Dad gave him his first camera, a Rolleiflex. His father gave it to him as a going away present. In 1944 Richard Avedon began working as a advertising photographer for a department store, but shorty after he started working there he was discovered by Alexey Brodovitch. Alexey is an art director for the fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar.

          Avedon set up his own studio and began taking images for magazines including Vogue in 1946. He became chief photographer for Harper’s Bazaar. Avedons type of pictures was not just boring and plan , he showed took pictures of his models and portrayed them as full of emotion, smiling, laughing and many times in action. In 1966 Avedon left Harper’s Bazaar to work as a staff photographer for Vogue magazine. He became the lead photographer for Vogue and photographed most of the covers from 1973 until Anna Wintour became editor in chief in the late 1988. In addition to taking pictures of fashion he branched out and started photographing patients of mental hospitals, the Civil Rights Movemtn ib 1963 protesters of the Vietnam War, and later the fall of Berlin Wall. During that [eriod Avedon created two fmous sets of portraits of The Beatles The first was taken in mid to late 1967 and It became one of the major rock poster series.

         He was always interested in how portraiture captures the personality and soul subject. His reputation as a photographer became widely known. He took a lot of pictures of famous people. His portraits are easily distinguished by their minimalist style. This is where the person is looking squarely in the camera, posted in front of a a sheer white background.

 

            In 1944 Avedon married Dorces Nowell, who later on became a model and became known as Doe Avedon . Nowell and Avedon divorced after five years of marriage. In 1951 he married Evenlyn Franklin. She died on March 13, 2004. They had one son together, John Avedon . On October 1, 2004 Avedon died of a brain hemorrhage in San Antonio Texas, while shooting an assignment for The New Yorker. At the time of his death, he was also working on a new project titled Democracy to focus on the run up to the 2004 U.S presidential election. Avedon keeps living thru his son and his four grandchildren.