Portraits of power.

• Position: Museums Today - Richard Avedon exhibition

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Richard Avedon (1923-2004) was the preeminent fashion photographer and editorial portraitist in the U.S. throughout his 60-year career. Serving in the Merchant Marines during World War II, Avedon was assigned to the photography unit and learned his trade making identification portraits. After the war, he found work as a photographer for Harper's Bazaar and Theater Arts and began a fruitful apprenticeship with legendary editor, designer, and artist Alexey Brodovitch.

Rising to prominence quickly, Avedon invigorated the staid fashion photography of the time, staging fictional tableaux and developing an unprecedented dramatic style. His penetrating portraits were equally revolutionary. He usually photographed his subjects against a plain white background to focus on the unique character and personality of the person, without the distraction of place. Moving to Vogue magazine in 1966 and The New Yorker in the mid 1990s, Avedon continued to innovate in editorial work, fashion, and portraiture right up until his death.

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"Richard Avedon: Portraits of Power" brings together more than 200 of his political portraits of the country's power elite--many rarely have been seen and some never before exhibited or published. Avedon photographed the faces of politics throughout his career. Juxtaposing images of government, media, and labor officials with countercultural activists and ordinary citizens caught up in national debates, the exhibition explores a taxonomy of politics and power by one of the country's best-known artists. The "Portraits of Power" images are displayed chronologically and grouped within Avedon's specific editorial projects.

"Richard Avedon is, undisputedly, the most important of American portrait photographers," declares Paul Roth, curator of photography and media arts at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. "At this moment, as we move toward a historic presidential [inauguration] in Washington, Avedon's political portraits seem utterly of the moment: an education on the last 50 years of our history and, at the same time, a vital lesson about power."

With unparalleled access afforded by his fame and his work for prestigious magazines, Avedon photographed important figures of the American political scene throughout his career. In addition to single portraits commissioned to accompany magazine profiles, the artist made several extended...