An intimate biography of Richard Avedon, the legendary fashion and portrait photographer who "helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture" (The New York Times), by his longtime collaborator and business partner Norma Stevens and award-winning author Steven M. L. Aronson.
Richard Avedon was arguably the world's most famous photographer-as artistically influential as he was commercially successful. Over six richly productive decades, he created landmark advertising campaigns, iconic fashion photographs (as the star photographer for Harper's Bazaar and then Vogue), groundbreaking books, and unforgettable portraits of everyone who was anyone. He also went on the road to find and photograph remarkable uncelebrated faces, with an eye toward constructing a grand composite picture of America.
Avedon dazzled even his most dazzling subjects. He possessed a mystique so unique it was itself a kind of genius-everyone fell under his spell. But the Richard Avedon the world saw was perhaps his greatest creation: he relentlessly curated his reputation and controlled his image, managing to remain, for all his exposure, among the most private of celebrities.
No one knew him better than did Norma Stevens, who for thirty years was his business partner and closest confidant. In Avedon: Something Personal-equal parts memoir, biography, and oral history, including an intimate portrait of the legendary Avedon studio-Stevens and co-author Steven M. L. Aronson masterfully trace Avedon's life from his birth to his death, in 2004, at the age of eighty-one, while at work in Texas for The New Yorker (whose first-ever staff photographer he had become in 1992).
The book contains startlingly candid reminiscences by Mike Nichols, Calvin Klein, Claude Picasso, Renata Adler, Brooke Shields, David Remnick, Naomi Campbell, Twyla Tharp, Jerry Hall, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Bruce Weber, Cindy Crawford, Donatella Versace, Jann Wenner, and Isabella Rossellini, among dozens of others.
Avedon: Something Personal is the confiding, compelling full story of a man who for half a century was an enormous influence on both high and popular culture, on both fashion and art-to this day he remains the only artist to have had not one but two retrospectives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art during his lifetime. Not unlike Richard Avedon's own defining portraits, the book delivers the person beneath the surface, with all his contradictions and complexities, and in all his touching humanity.
Industry Reviews
"It's a good time, this book. There's a feeling of arriving at a party where everyone is at least two drinks (and who knows what else) ahead of you, and the hostess has you by the arm and is barreling you into the thick of things, talking a mile a minute, catching you up on everyone's hidden agendas. . . . [Norma] Stevens is most illuminating in her behind-the-scenes glimpses of [Richard] Avedon's work. . . . Everyone saw one side of him--but together the testimonials of his assistants, models and lovers add up to a mosaic of the man. The snapshots are affectionate and admiring, and the contradictions in them can give you whiplash."--The New York Times "Intimate and dishy in its conversational tone, the book makes you feel as though you are nose to nose trading stories with a vivacious confidant, your most fabulous friend telling you unabashed and juicy truths. . . . This roomy account fills in the renowned white space surrounding Avedon, a man who curated his reputation as carefully as he did his output, remaining relentlessly private even as he revealed the era's most incandescent personalities in Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, The New Yorker and more. Notably, this book gives these luminaries--including Renata Adler, Mike Nichols, Naomi Campbell, Veruschka, and Twyla Tharp--the chance to speak illuminatingly on the man who captured them on film. It's a saucy meandering from anecdote to anecdote, the pace set by the steady thump of name-dropping. . . . By the end of these 720 sumptuous pages, Stevens and [Steven M. L.] Aronson have telescoped Avedon's star into much clearer view."--Chicago Tribune
"Although the bitchier and more salacious anecdotes . . . will likely earn the book a good deal of attention, the cast of characters is most interesting when discussing Avedon's central struggle: Should he direct his talents to selling the lie or revealing the truth? . . . The composite portrait that emerges . . . depicts a frantic, insecure artist consumed by ambition. Testimonies--especially those by Avedon's former studio assistants and managers--also reveal a man capable of great generosity and unadulterated joy."--The Wall Street Journal
"[Offers] loads of personal information here to horrify an estate that would prefer to paint an unblemished face on the reputation of the deceased . . . Balancing the disclosure of these secrets, however, the authors dazzle us with stories from models, writers, editors, actors, and friends that attest to [his] electrifying and seductive intelligence. . . . [The book] is huge and packed with entertaining trivia . . . as well as characters seldom encountered in previous books about Avedon. . . . If nothing else, [it] has peeked under the mask worn by its attractive subject."--Collector Daily (Photobooks)
"Capacious and valuable . . . Avedon lived a rich, full life, and a rich, full life has sex, love, food, clarity, contradiction."--HuffPost
"Avedon: Something Personal gives you the gossip. Snap!"--New York
"If you're into pop culture, you'll inhale Avedon: Something Personal."--Kitty Kelley
