Evidence 1944-1994 - Hardcover

Jane Livingston; David A. Ross

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 067940922X ISBN 13: 9780679409229

Publisher: Random House, 1994

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Reviews

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.

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.

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 067940922X
• ISBN 13: 9780679409229
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 183