Richard Avedon Photos: Beatles, Bob Dylan, Marilyn Monroe, Tina Turner

By Simon Vozick-Levinson

The word "iconic" gets thrown around a lot these days, but if there's anyone whose work it applies to without question, it's Richard Avedon. His photographic portraits of some of the greatest luminaries in 20th-century pop culture — the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Marilyn Monroe, and many more — made him a widely celebrated artist in his own right. Avedon, who died in 2004, landed his photos in the pages of magazines like Rolling Stone, Vogue, and Harper's Bazaar and in the collections of modern-art museums alike. All of which presents a challenge for anyone mounting a retrospective of his work: Is there a way for us to see such very famous images of extremely famous people with fresh eyes?

For "Avedon 100," which opened last month at Gagosian gallery in New York to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the photographer's birth, the curators answered that question by crowd-sourcing. They asked a wide group of friends, family, and A-list figures from the worlds of fashion, music, art, and culture to select images from Avedon's catalog: People like Chloe Sevigny, Elton John, Naomi Campbell, Donatella Versace, Hillary Clinton, Spike Lee, and Kim Kardashian all took part in the project.

"At first we thought, 100th birthday, 100 individuals, and then there was such robust response that we ended up with 158 people and 147 artworks," says Gagosian senior director Kara Vander Weg. "Then we had to cut it off, because we didn't have any more space left in the gallery."

The exhibition has been a huge hit, and its run was recently extended to July 7; it also forms the basis for a new book. And it shows that Avedon's work still has the ability to stop us in our tracks. Seeing the images all together, reflected through a lens of celebrity that he helped create all those decades ago, means more than seeing any one of them reproduced on a screen.

"People have asked us, ‘How did he get these people to sit for him?’" says Vander Weg. "And it was because it was an honor to be photographed by Richard Avedon. It was a mark of accomplishment. And also, they hoped that they were going to look their best."

This shot for Harper's Bazaar comes from Avedon's early years as a fashion photographer. "He did a lot of really innovative work in Paris when he did not have a studio to work out of, and instead was working on the street, working with models in the wild, so to speak," Vander Weg says. "It's a quintessential Paris fashion photograph."

Louis Armstrong practically vibrates off the print in this, an early example of the black-and-white portrait style that Avedon would become most known for. "He was so good at extracting the essence of a human in a photograph," Vander Weg says. "He didn't need anything extraneous. He didn't need background. It was just about the person."

"The photographs that Avedon was taking at the time were so innovative," Vander Weg says. This famous Harper's Bazaar shoot stars the Fifties supermodel Dovima (born Dorothy Virginia Margaret Juba) posing casually with a few pachyderms. "The photograph that we have in the exhibition is the largest size at which he printed it," Vander Weg adds. "It becomes this towering figure. I think it's totally seductive."

When you walk into the gallery to see "Avedon 100," you encounter a mural of Marilyn Monroe dancing across the frame — "the glamorous, fabulous, beautiful movie star that we know," Vander Weg says. Later on, you’ll find this contemplative portrait, which Avedon captured on the same day in 1957. "The portrait is the real Marilyn, I think," Vander Weg says. "You really see it in her eyes, and of course you then attribute all sorts of thoughts and feelings to her…. It's one of the great portraits of our time, of any form — photography, painting, anything."

This image of comedian Mike Nichols and model Suzy Parker comes from a Harper's Bazaar series that parodied recent paparazzi photos of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton after their scandalous affair on the set of the film Cleopatra. "Avedon wasn't afraid to take chances and poke fun," Vander Weg says.

Another image that shows Avedon's skill as a fashion photographer. "Suzy Parker was so well-known at the time, just a classic beauty," Vander Weg says. "And Robin Tattersall is the classic gentleman. It's a dream."

This closeup of aging boxer Joe Louis’ fist was selected for the exhibition by James Baldwin's nephew Trevor. Growing up in the Bronx in the late 1930s, Avedon was a high school classmate and close friend of the elder Baldwin.

"Avedon was very passionate about equality," Vander Weg says. "This image is about power in America, and the struggle that was going on in our country. He wanted to say something about that, and he did it with that fist."

"It's kind of surprising for some people to see this," Vander Weg says. It comes from Nothing Personal, the 1964 book featuring text by Baldwin and photos by Avedon. "It's an incredibly powerful book, and parts of it are really upsetting," she adds. "And it ends with that image. It's a symbol of hope."

Avedon photographed Dylan twice; this image comes from the second shoot, about a month after Dylan recorded Bringing It All Back Home, but still a few weeks away from the album's release. You can almost see the restless energy of songs like "Maggie's Farm" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," just waiting to come out and upend rock & roll.

By the mid-Sixties, Avedon was one of rock's premier visual artists. He broke from his standard monochrome palette for these iconic portraits of the Beatles, which were commissioned by Brian Epstein in one of his final acts as the band's manager. Perfectly capturing the psychedelic spirit of the Sgt. Pepper era, they live on decades later as posters in many Beatles fans’ homes.

This larger-than-life mural of Warhol and some of his superstars is stitched together from three separate photos that Avedon took at the Factory in 1969. "It's a testament to Avedon's talent that he makes it look so clean and seamless," Vander Weg says. Warhol stands off to the far right, yielding the stage to pop-art personas like Candy Darling and Brigid Polk, some of whose figures are repeated more than once. "Andy is letting his performers perform," Vander Weg says. "Avedon clearly really thought out the power relationships between these people."

(Full title: Andy Warhol and members of The Factory: Paul Morrissey, director; Joe Dallesandro, actor; Candy Darling, actor; Eric Emerson, actor; Jay Johnson, actor; Tom Hompertz, actor; Gerard Malanga, poet; Viva, actress; Paul Morrissey; Taylor Mead, actor; Brigid Polk, actress; Joe Dallesandro; and Andy Warhol, artist, New York, October 30, 1969)

"Such a great image, and also so weird," Vander Weg says of this group portrait of the revolutionary beat poet and his extended family. "It sort of reminds me of a Wes Anderson movie. One of the children is holding cake, another is holding a melon. Why is she holding a melon? There's so many layers to that photograph."

(Full title: Allen Ginsberg's family: Hannah (Honey) Litzky, aunt; Leo Litzky, uncle; Abe Ginsberg, uncle; Anna Ginsberg, aunt; Louis Ginsberg, father; Eugene Brooks, brother; Allen Ginsberg, poet; Anne Brooks, niece; Peter Brooks, nephew; Connie Brooks, sister-in-law; Lyle Brooks, nephew; Eugene Brooks; Neal Brooks, nephew; Edith Ginsberg, stepmother; and Louis Ginsberg, Paterson, New Jersey, May 3, 1970)

This image feels especially moving after the legendary singer's death at age 83. "It's such a fabulous photo," says Vander Weg, who spoke with RS a few days before Turner died in late May. "She's larger than life size, and she's dancing like only Tina Turner can. The microphone cord is flying behind her, her hair is flying, and you get that sense of motion through the photograph."

This image of labor leader Cesar Chavez comes from "The Family," a portfolio of Avedon portraits that was commissioned as a Rolling Stone cover story in 1976. "It was in honor of the country's centennial, and it was meant to be a collection of people in power in America at that time, from the left and the right side of politics," Vander Weg says. "The beauty of his strategy with the registration border and the white background is that everybody is on equal turf."

Another image from "The Family," showing future president George H.W. Bush. "I wonder if he liked it," Vander Weg says. "Because some of them didn't. For instance, Kissinger, I know, hated his picture."

This portrait of the artist Francis Bacon features an unusual appearance from Avedon himself in front of the camera. "The sweater that Bacon is wearing was apparently Richard Avedon's sweater," Vander Weg says. "I don't know what he was wearing before, but he didn't like it… I think you see that Avedon is the mastermind of the image, and Bacon is the severe, serious artist that you know him to be from his pictures that he painted."

Hints of vibrant purple come through in this portrait, which Avedon shot for Rolling Stone in the early Eighties. "Isn't that a great color?" Vander Weg says. "The fact that it's in color is surprising, [but] there are some of the same techniques: the frontally-facing individual, the solid background. Look at how he can still really make somebody look great, and also make somebody look like themselves."

This is one of the later images in the exhibition, taken a few years before Avedon's death at age 81 in 2004. "He went out working," Vander Weg says. "He died on assignment for the New Yorker, photographing a series about democracy."

Patti Smith was there at the Gagosian exhibit's opening this spring, which meant a lot to the people who put it together. "I talked to her for a little while, and she was so complimentary of the show," Vander Weg adds. "She said, ‘It's so great to see so many of my friends on the walls.’"