Richard Avedon (1923 - 2004)

Richard Avedon was born in New York City in 1923. He was known for his revolutionary fashion photography, portraiture and documenting the civil rights struggle of the 1960s as well as the Vietnam war. He was also known as the world’s highest paid photographer.

He was a staff photographer at Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Theatre Arts, Egoïste and The New Yorker. He had numerous exhibitions around the world.

He was the visual consultant for the film "Funny Face," which starred Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn and was based on Avedon's career. He was also involved in the American Masters Documentary program, "Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light" for PBS.

He finished life on assignment in San Antonio, Texas for New Yorker Magazine on October 1, 2004.

He wrote and/or photographed "Nothing Personal," "Alice In Wonderland: The Forming of a Company, The Making of a Play," "Portraits," "The Family," "The Sixties," "Avedon: Photographs 1947-1977," "In the American West 1979-1984," "An Autobiography by Richard Avedon," "Evidence 1944-1994," "Richard Avedon: Made in France" and "Richard Avedon Portraits."
These books have won the Maine Photographic Workshop Nikon Award for the Best Photographer Book of the Year, National Magazine Award for Visual Excellence, and the Prix Nadar by the Bibliotheque Nationale for the best photographic book.

He was named by Popular Photography magazine as "One of the World's Ten Greatest Photographers," and Photo District News as the "Most Influential Photographer of the Last Twenty Years." He received lifetime achievement awards from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Council of Fashion Designers of America, The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers and Americans for the Arts.

The Art Directors Club of New York awarded him the Highest Achievement Medal award as well as placing him in The Hall of Fame. He has been an American Society of Magazine Photographers’ Photographer of the Year, Adweek magazine’s Commercial Television Director of the Year, Eastman Kodak’s Commercial Television Director of the Year.

His awards include the Erna and Victor Hasselblad Foundation International Photography Prize, the International Center of Photography Master of Photography Award, Deutsches Centrum für Photographie, Berlin Photography Prize 2000, and the Royal Photographic Society, 150th Anniversary Medal. He also received the Mental Health Association of New York City, Humanitarian Award.

Additional images can be seen at RichardAvedon.com.