Richard Avedon. In the American West. 1979-1984

Organised by the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson with exhibits on loan from The Richard Avedon Foundation, and curated by Clément Chéroux, the exhibition at the Palazzo Esposizioni presents the American photographer Richard Avedon’s landmark series of portraits originally commissioned by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas. The series was subsequently published in 1985 in the book “In the American West” by Harry N. Abrams, New York.

By the late 1970s, Avedon was best known for his fashion work published in magazines such as “Harper’s Bazaar” and “Vogue”, and for his portraits of artists and public figures. As early as 1962, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington had organized a retrospective of the artist and in 1978 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York had hosted a solo exhibition of his work. The portrait of a ranch foreman, taken by the photographer in 1978 whilst convalescing in Montana and published in “Newsweek”, caught the attention of Mitchell A. Wilder, then director of the Amon Carter Museum, who suggested to Avedon that he develop a project dedicated to the American West.

Each summer between 1979 and 1984, Avedon travelled through twenty-one states, from Colorado to Montana, from Wyoming to Texas and California. Stopping at truck stops, cattle markets, mining camps and oil fields, or mingling amongst the crowds at county fairs, rodeos and carnivals, he photographed over a thousand people against a simple sheet of white paper hung outdoors, in open shade, with no artificial light. Stripped of any environmental context, each subject is removed from their immediate surroundings and presented to the viewer through their direct relationship with the lens, taking on a broader dimension and becoming a representation of a country undergoing economic and social change.

Alongside the 110 engraver’s prints made for the book, the exhibition brings together archival material from The Richard Avedon Foundation that documents his working method: handwritten notes, working Polaroids and papers from the files he kept on individual sitters, including his correspondence with them.

Photo: Sandra Bennett, twelve year old, Rocky Ford, Colorado, August 23, 1980 ©The Richard Avedon Foundation