Fashion & Portraits
«If each photograph steals a bit of the soul, isn’t it possible that I give up pieces of mine every time I take a picture?»
Richard Avedon was born in New York; his father owned a shop on Fifth Avenue. At 12 years old, he joined the YMHA camera club – an early photograph shows him with his Kodak Box Brownie in Central Park in 1935. He started working for Harper’s Bazaar in 1945, where he remained for 20 years before defecting to Vogue along with the magazine’s new editor, Diana Vreeland. He stayed there until 1988, carving out a parallel career in political and social reportage. He documented the emerging civil rights movement in the American south, and photographed students and activists during the Vietnam war.
For Avedon, models weren’t static beauties; they were athletic, full of energy and movement. One of his favourite models of the 1950s, Suzy Parker, once said, «He’s the most wonderful man in the business, because he realises that models are not just coat-hangers.»
He photographed everyone from Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton to Marilyn Monroe, Dorothy Parker and the Duchess of Windsor as well as a lot of «unknown» people.
Veruschka, New York, 1967
Buster Keaton, 1952
Marlon Brando, 1951
Kate Moss, 1998
Marilyn Monroe, 1957
Charlize Theron, 2004
Tal faràs, tal trobaràs 
My favorite one is M. Monroe. She suffered a lot. Sometimes beauty is a curse. She did not like being a piece of meat with no brain. Poor woman! She seems Bukowski ‘s «The most beuatiful woman in town.»
Regí
Marilyn was more than a pretty face or a piece of meat. Avedon said «Marilyn gave more to the camera than every other acress». If she were alive today she’d turn 89 on her next birthday.
És una pena allò de la Marylin. Vicent Andrés Estellés va escriure sobre ella en el seu «Oratori del nostre temps», de recomanable lectura. Allí denuncia el seu assassinat. Comença més o menys així: «Mireu-la tota nua damunt del llit» i segueix explicant com va morir. El llibre va ser editat per 3 i 4.
Thanks.
Regí
Deixe l’enllaç i recomane la compra i lectura. Es tracta d’un aspecte d’Estellés poc conegut: el teatral. Com és natural, va ser censurat:
http://www.tresiquatre.cat/llibres/?li_id=28383
Oratori del nostre temps. Sona molt interessant, el compraré. Moltes gràcies pels teus comentaris i per la informació. Rep una abraçada!
The soul is also in the eyes of the beholder.
I’m not sure…
Beauty is in eye of beholder, but that doesn’t always mean you look beyond the body. Truly being in love or love means to me to behold the soul in my «eyes».