Although Richard Avedon had been a successful fashion photographer in New York for several years, his break-out picture, the one that perhaps the general public became aware of was Dovima with Elephants taken at the Cirque d’Hiver in Paris in 1955. I, like everybody else, knew this picture but I didn’t really know the name or become a fan until the sleeve of the Simon and Garfunkel album Bookends in 1968. I think this was their best album and the best sleeve. Since then I was always on the lookout for Avedon‘s work.
Avedon was born in New York in 1923 to a Jewish-Russian immigrant family who were involved in the garment trade on Fifth Avenue. You could say his first job as a professional photographer was during the war when, as a humble private, his job was to photographs thousands of soldiers for their identity cards. By 1946 he had his own studio and was working for Vogue, Life and Harper’s Bazaar. In a career spanning sixty years he photographed actors, politicians, presidents, avant-garde poets, rock stars and, of course, fashion. Sadly, the Simon and Garfunkel photo was not on view, just the printed Bookends album in a glass case in the corner.
It could be said Avedon’s work pursued and encouraged the unexpected. His portraits sought to capture the sitter off guard or at a vulnerable moment. He famously told the Duke and Duchess of Windsor that a taxi had just run over a dog outside in order to obtain their shocked expressions. His studio fashion work often had the models jumping or turning so as to give the impression of movement a technique he had used while shooting on location. Predictable he wasn’t.
He was by all accounts a hard task master in the studio, often seen as unapproachable and daunting. He worked a lot with Brooke Shields in the 1970s and she said of him in a piece for Interview magazine in May 1992, “When Dick walks into the room, a lot of people are intimidated. But when he works, he’s so acutely creative, so sensitive. And he doesn’t like it if anyone else is around or speaking. There is a mutual vulnerability and a moment of fusion when he clicks the shutter. You either get it or you don’t”.
The Kunsthal exhibition is beautifully but quite simply laid out in a series of identical dark blue rectangular rooms containing many life-size portraits. You will be familiar with many of the one hundred and thirty pictures, like the 1981 photo of a naked reclining Natassya Kinski in the embrace of giant snake, or the simple head-shot of Marilyn Monroe in a white dress and, of course, Dovima with Elephants. There is even a little studio set up with lights and background paper so you can do a selfie à la Richard Avedon.
If you are a follower of contemporary photography, fashion or even the gossip columns, then Relationships, the photographs of Richard Avedon (1923-2004) at Kunsthal Rotterdam is a must see. Michael Hasted 28th August 2024
The exhibition runs until 6th October
