Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Monday, February 17, 2025

Avedon's theatrical photographs document six decades of beauty

She tosses her head back in laughter as he holds her hands in his. The playful wind picks up the corners of her Dior coat and they glide through the Parisian square. Their bodies pull toward each other and then arch away. He balances on one foot with careless ease, with all the grace of Fred Astaire on roller skates.

This iconic 1956 image of fashion model Suzy Parker and her unlikely male counterpart Robin Tattersall epitomizes the theme of theater and illusion that penetrates Richard Avedon's work. In fact, on the other side of Avedon's lens, nobody is roller skating, there is no trace of wind and the couple isn't even moving.

When medical student Robin Tattersall walked into Avedon's studio to do some part−time modeling to help pay for school, he didn't realize a proficiency in roller skating was a job requirement. After many failed attempts to skate through the streets of Paris, the photograph was ultimately turned into a still image, with both models balancing in place. It is not the wind that picks up the corners of Parker's coat but very thin cables tied to each end.

"Avedon Fashion: 1944−2000" traces the work of fashion photographer Richard Avedon across six decades, during which he photographed for Harper's Bazaar, Vogue and The New Yorker. The exhibit sprawls across four main rooms, threading together ever−changing standards of beauty and fashion and the attitudes toward each. From Audrey Hepburn and Brigitte Bardot to Elizabeth Taylor and Kate Moss, Avedon's photography captures countless fashion icons at the height of their influence.

Avedon's photos are at once iconic and playful. His high−contrast, sculptural studio images seem to meld the female body with the clothes covering it. A 1968 nude of Lauren Hutton, shot on a beach in the Bahamas, depicts a glistening young woman with her chest thrust toward the sun and her head tilted back so far that she appears like a headless bust.

Avedon was known for contorting the poses of his female models to the extent that they are nearly stripped of their human quality. The female body becomes obscured and begins to act in tandem with the clothes, forming sculptural contours, sharp points and languid lines. It is as if the human body becomes a part of the fashion, rather than the other way around. His studio photographs, like the 1966 image of the lithe Donyale Luna, are at once statuesque and dynamic.

For the care that he took in contriving his pieces, Avedon was as much a director as a photographer. The theatricality in the image of Parker and Tattersall on roller skates is also evident throughout the whole body of Avedon's work. In a 1962 image of Parker with Mike Nichols, Avedon captures Nichols mid−gesture as he tosses the contents of his champagne flute at an impeccably styled Parker, who throws up her hands while looking shocked. The high−contrast image is hyperbolically kitschy.

Some of Avedon's most striking images are those of post−war Paris, in which he attempted to recreate the glitz and carefree luxury of the pre−war city. One of the rooms in the exhibit, entitled "Paris at Night," is dedicated to this series. In the dark space, a concentrated spotlight shines directly on the surface of each photograph.

One of the photos in this series is a 1957 image of Suzy Parker at the Moulin Rouge; she glances over one shoulder as the train of her Grès evening gown glistens in the spotlight. The museum wall text explains how Avedon employed a set and crew comparable to those used in a feature film to create the effect. The exhibit succeeds in replicating the dazzling lights and glamour of Parisian nightlife while concealing most of its superficiality from the viewer.

Avedon was the first−ever staff photographer for The New Yorker, where he executed a series in 1995 entitled "In Memory of the Late Mr. and Mrs. Comfort." The photographs depict model Nadja Auermann in gilded dresses. She stands alongside a ghostly skeleton referred to as "A Person Unknown," which many speculate represents the artist himself. In one image, Auermann lights her cigarette using two flaming hundred−dollar bills offered up by the skeleton's hand in a grotesque exaggeration of the decadence of past decades.

While the fashions, hairstyles and poses change throughout, the exhibit projects a consistent image of a confident and independent — if objectified — 20th century woman. This is a woman whom Avedon seems to strive consciously to create.

"Dress designers lent me textures, shapes, patterns that became the ally of my true work, which was always about women — what was going on beneath their clothes, beneath the hats," Avedon had previously said.

Whether or not his images reveal anything of their subjects beyond superficial façades, his work undeniably defines a chapter in fashion history.

"Avedon Fashion: 1944−2000" is on display at the Foster Gallery of the Museum of Fine Arts through Jan. 17, 2011. The traveling exhibit was arranged by the International Center of Photography and admission is free with a Tufts ID.