Photography and fashion: a retrospective celebrates Richard Avedon at Milan's Palazzo Reale

The Palazzo Reale in Milan is hosting from September 22, 2022 to January 29, 2023 the exhibition Richard Avedon. Relationships dedicated to one of the masters of twentieth-century photography. The exhibition will trace the more than 60-year career of Richard Avedon through 106 images from the collection of the Center for Creative Photography (CCP) in Tucson (USA) and the Richard Avedon Foundation (USA). Curated by Rebecca Senf, head of the Center for Creative Photography collection, the retrospective is promoted by the City of Milan-Cultura, produced and organized by Palazzo Reale and Skira Editore in collaboration with the Center for Creative Photography and the Richard Avedon Foundation; main partner Versace and media partner Vogue Italia.

Relationships intends to delve into the innovative aspects of Avedon’s art: if on the one hand he revolutionized the way of photographing models, transforming them from static subjects to actresses protagonists of the set by also showing their human side, on the other hand his surprising portraits of celebrities, in black and white and often of large format, reveal the most inner psychological side of the person portrayed.

One section will be devoted to the collaboration between Richard Avedon and Gianni Versace, which began with the campaign for the spring/summer 1980 collection, which decreed the designer’s debut, up to that of the spring/summer 1998 collection, the first signed by Donatella Versace. Through his gaze, Avedon was one of the few photographers to interpret the avant-garde of Gianni Versace, illustrating the style and elegance of the Italian designer.

Avedon’s abstract language operates in a compressed space that enhances the figures of some of the most celebrated supermodels of the time, through convulsive, syncopated movements that highlight the form and materiality of the clothes they wear, as in the case of the campaign for the spring/summer 1993 collection, featuring Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Kate Moss, Aya Thorgren, and Shalom Harlow.

Divided into ten sections (The Artist, The Premise of the show, Early Fashion, Actors and Directors, Visual Artists, Performing Artists / Musicians and writers / Poets, Avedon’s People, Politics, Late Fashion, Versace), the exhibition is built around the most significant features of his research: fashion photographs and portraits. The fashion ones can be grouped into two main periods. The early images, made before 1960, are taken on location and feature models impersonating a role to evoke a narrative. Later works, on the other hand, focus exclusively on the model and the garments she wears. In these later photographs, Avedon often uses a minimalist, uniform background, and most often portrays the subject in dynamic poses, using the fluid forms of the body to reveal the construction, fabric, and movement of the garment. The earliest fashion photographs taken by Avedon (those prior to 1960) are created for the pages of women’s magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, a title he worked with until 1988, leading the viewer into a world of glamour and fun. Some of the scenes feature a minimalist background and few environmental details, while others include locations and several actors. In these filmic photographs, Avedon uses additional figures strategically. As in Carmen, Homage to Munkacsi, Cardin Coat, Place François-Premier, Paris, 1957, where the photographer focuses on the model who, suspended in mid-air in the jump, is placed in the center of the frame. The simplicity of Carmen’s photo is contrasted by the image of Suzy Parker with Robin Tattersall and Gardner McKay, Lanvin-Castillo Evening Dress, Café des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1956, in which the model in a seductive pose stands next to two men in tuxedos.

There were many supermodels with whom Avedon worked intensively, from Dovima to China Machado, Suzy Parker to Jean Shrimpton, Penelope Tree to Twiggy to Veruschka. The result was spectacular images, such as the iconic Dovima with Elephants, Dior Evening Dress, Cirque d’Hiver, Paris 1955. A series of images depicting Penelope Tree or Jean Shrimpton reveals how Avedon knew how to exploit the particular qualities of a model’s face or body, and three photographs of Dorian Leigh from 1949 show how he could transform the subject through different locations and outfits so that he impersonated distinct roles and characters.

As for portraits, Avedon is known for his particular style, which he developed beginning in 1969. Highlights of his approach include his use of a white background, which allowed him to eliminate the potential distracting elements of a given photographic set in order to emphasize the qualities of pose, gesture and expression. One example is the 1981 photograph, chosen as the exhibition’s guiding image, which depicts Nastassja Kinski, softly lying on the floor and embraced by a snake. Working primarily with a large-format camera, he shot his subjects close enough so that they occupied a large section of the frame, reinforcing in the viewer an awareness of the negative space between the figure and the margin. Avedon brings to life powerfully descriptive portraits that bring the viewer closer to the subjects portrayed. For example, in the photograph The Sculptress Louise Nevelson, New York, May 13, 1975, we can admire the seventy-five-year-old artist’s ultra-short haircut, the way her eyes peer out at us from behind her heavily mascara-covered eyelashes, the subtle shimmer of her lip gloss, or the gorgeous appliqués on the sleeves of her overcoat. Avedon had the opportunity to photograph many of his subjects years later. Such was the case with painter Jasper Johns in 1965 and 1976, writer Carson McCullers in 1956 and 1958, politician George Wallace in 1963 and 1976, and poet Allen Ginsberg in 1963 and 1970.

But perhaps the most striking case of a prolonged photographic relationship is the one involving his friend Truman Capote. Avedon first photographed Capote in 1949. Then, in 1959, the two collaborated on Avedon’s first book, Observations, a collection of portraits of celebrities, including opera singer Marian Anderson, painter Pablo Picasso, and marine scientist and explorer Jacques Cousteau. The volume featured an essay by Capote and his comments on the photographs, while the artwork was edited by Aleksej Brodovic, the legendary art director of Harper’s Bazaar. Capote and Avedon worked together again the following year. While the writer was in Garden City, Kansas, writing In Cold Blood, Avedon joined him on four separate occasions to photograph alleged murderers Perry Smith and Richard “Dick” Hickock, awaiting trial.

The exhibition also features a substantial selection of portraits of celebrities from the world of show business, actors, dancers, musicians but also civil rights activists, politicians and writers, including those of the Beatles (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr), but also Bob Dylan, Michelangelo Antonioni, Allen Ginsberg, Sofia Loren, Marylin Monroe, the Dalai Lama and two of Andy Wahrol, where the father of American Pop art decides to show his intimacy to Richard Avedon by exhibiting his gunshot scars after surviving an assassination attempt.

One section is devoted to portraits of American civil rights movement figures and members of the U.S. Congress, the latter of whom converged in the portfolio The Family, made in 1976 for Rolling Stone magazine, which documented the U.S. political power elite.

For info: palazzorealemilano.it

Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Thursday from 10 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Closed Mondays.

Image: Richard Avedon, Dovima with elephants, evening dress by Dior, Cirque d’Hiver, Paris, August 1955 © The Richard Avedon Foundation

Photography and fashion: a retrospective celebrates Richard Avedon at Milan's Palazzo Reale

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.