PHOTO:Richard Avedon-Rome

‘’Whenever I become absorbed in the beauty of a face, in the excellence of a single feature, I feel I’ve lost what’s really there… been seduced by someone else’s standard of beauty or by the sitter’s own idea of the best in him. That’s not usually the best. So each sitting becomes a contest’’. Richard Avedon

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Gagosian Gallery Archive

From the beginning of his career as a fashion photographer in the 1940s, Avedon was renowned for his distinctive and transformative imagery, which challenged the boundaries of conventional beauty. Throughout sixty years, he captured with inventiveness, wit and insight both well-known and anonymous female subjects, from celebrities and models to friends and family. Fascinated by photography’s capacity for suggesting the personality and evoking the life of his subject, he also registered pose, attitude, clothing, and accessories as vital, revelatory elements of an image. This exhibition emphasizes the breadth of Avedon’s creative and sometimes shocking representations of women, from intimate portraits to celebrated fashion photographs for Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, The New Yorker and other publications. He set models in action, provoking them to appear questioning, unruly, vivacious, and confidently alive. The exhibition begins with the “Early Paris Fashion Portfolio”, eleven images commissioned by Harper’s Bazaar between 1947 and 1957, all of which were taken outside of the studio and capture the street life of Paris.

Info: Gagosian Gallery, Via Francesco Crispi 16 00187 Rome, Duration: 27/2-11/4/15, Days & Hours: Tue–Sat 10:30-19:00, www.gagosian.com