Richard Avedon (May 15, 1923 – October 1, 2004) was an American ...

ecame widely known, he brought in many famous faces to his studioand photographed them with a large-format 8x10 view camera. Hisportraits are easily distinguished by their minimalist style, where theperson is looking squarely in the camera, posed in front of a sheer whitebackground. Among the many rock bands photographed by Avedon, in1973 he shot Electric Light Orchestra with all the members exposingtheir bellybuttons for recording, On the Third Day.He is also distinguished by his large prints, sometimes measuring overthree feet in height. His large-format portrait work of drifters, miners,cowboys and others from the western United States became a bestsellingbook and traveling exhibit entitled In the American West, and isregarded as an important hallmark in 20th Century portrait photography,and by some as Avedon's magnum opus. Commissioned by the AmonCarter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, it was a six-year project Avedonembarked on in 1979, that produced 125 portraits of people in theAmerican west who caught Avedon's eye.Avedon was drawn to working people such as miners and oil fieldworkers in their soiled work clothes, unemployed drifters, and teenagersgrowing up in the West circa 1979-84. When first published andexhibited, In the American West was criticized for showing what someconsidered to be a disparaging view of America. Avedon was also laudedfor treating his subjects with the attention and dignity usually reservedfor the politically powerful and celebrities. Laura Wilson served asAvedon's assistant during the creation of In the American West and in2003 published a photo book documenting the experiences, Avedon atWork, In the American West.Avedon became the first staff photographer for The New Yorker in1992. He has won many awards for his photography, including theInternational Center of Photography Master of Photography Award in1993, the Prix Nadar in 1994 for his photobook Evidence, and the RoyalPhotographic Society 150th Anniversary Medal in 2003. In 1944,Avedon married Dorcas Nowell, who later became a model and wasknown professionally as Doe Avedon. Nowell and Avedon divorced afterfive years of marriage.In 1951, he married Evelyn Franklin; their marriage produced oneson, John. Avedon and Franklin also later divorced.Martial arts movie star Loren Avedon is the nephew of Richard Avedon.On October 1, 2004, he suffered a brain hemorrhage in San Antonio,Texas while shooting an assignment for The New Yorker. At the time ofhis death, Avedon was working on a new project titled On Democracy tofocus on the run-up to the 2004 U.S. presidential election.Hollywood presented a fictional account of his early career in the1957 musical Funny Face, starring Fred Astaire as the fashionphotographer "Dick Avery." Avedon supplied some of the stillphotographs used in the production, including its most famous singleimage: an intentionally overexposed close-up of Audrey Hepburn's face