Also At The Metropolitan Museum
Richard Avedon: Portraits
September 26, 2002–January 5, 2003
Special Exhibition Galleries, The Tisch Galleries, 2nd floor
Although Richard Avedon first earned his reputation as a fashion photographer, his greatest achievement has been his stunning reinvention of the genre of photographic portraiture. Featuring approximately 180 works, this exhibition will span the artist’s entire career, from his earliest portraits in the late 1940s through his most recent work. At the core of the installation will be a powerful group of portraits of many of the key artistic, intellectual, and political figures from the late 1950s through the early 1970s, including several large murals, perhaps the grandest photographic portraits ever staged. Also featured will be boldly scaled photographs from the ambitious series "In the American West" and a poignant sequence of portraits of the artist’s father taken shortly before his death. Avedon’s portraits of artists and intellectuals of the last 20 years, including John Cheever, Roy Lichtenstein, and Harold Bloom, complete this artist’s collection of individuals who have shaped our world.