🔗 Share this article

Richard Avedon loathed the aging process – but he lived within it, joked regarding it, observed it compassionately and, most importantly, with resignation. “I’m getting on,” he would say while relatively young in his 60s. Over his professional life, he created countless photographs of aging's effects on facial features, and its unavoidable nature. For a man first, and possibly in public perception still, primarily linked to images of youth and beauty, liveliness and delight – a young woman twirling her dress, jumping across water, enjoying arcade games late at night in Paris – an equal portion exists of his oeuvre centered around the old and wizened and wise.

The Intricacy within Personalities

His friends always said that he was the most vibrant figure there – yet he had no desire to be the youngest person in the room. It was, though not quite offensive, a commonplace observation: what he desired was to become the most complicated person in the room. He loved contrasting feelings and opposition inside a solitary portrait, or sitter, rather than a grouping at the poles of sentiment. He was drawn to photographs like the famous Leonardo da Vinci which contrasts the profile of a beautiful youth with an elderly man having a strong jaw. And so, in a striking combination of images depicting cinematic auteurs, at first we may see the combative Ford set against the gentle Renoir. Ford’s curled lip and ostentatious, angry eye patch – such a covering appears hostile in its persistence on forcing your recognition of the absent orb – seen against the kind, philosophical look from Renoir, who at first glance similar to an enlightened Gallic artistic figure akin to Georges Braque.

But look again, and both Ford and Renoir are equally belligerent and benevolent, the pugilistic curl of their lips contradicting the light in their gaze, and Renoir’s asymmetrical gaze is just as strategic as it is benevolent. The American director could be intimidating us (very Americanly), however, Renoir is evaluating us. The straightforward, matching tropes about humanistic ideals are either subverted or enriched: men do not become movie directors by kindness exclusively. Aspiration, technique and determination are also depicted.

A Struggle With Stereotypes

Avedon fought with photographic conventions, including the cliches of ageing, and whatever appeared just sanctimonious or excessively scenic irritated him. Contradiction fueled his creative work. It was difficult sometimes for those he photographed to accept that he didn't intend to diminish them or betraying them when he informed them that he held in esteem what they concealed as much as what they were proud to display. This was a key factor The photographer had trouble, and couldn't completely achieve, in confronting his own aging persona – on one hand depicting himself as too irate in a way that was entirely uncharacteristic, or else too firm in an approach that was too introverted, possibly since the essential paradox in his personal nature was just as hidden from him as those he photographed experienced. The magician could work magic with other people but not himself.

The real contradiction within his personality – contrasting the earnest and severe observer of people's successes he embodied and the aspirational, intensely competitive presence within New York he was frequently described as – remained hidden from him, similar to how we miss our own oppositions. A film from his later years presented him thoughtfully wandering the cliffs of Montauk outside his house, absorbed in reflection – a spot he truly didn't frequent, staying indoors on the telephone with friends, advising, comforting, planning, enjoying.

Genuine Muses

The senior figures who knew how of existing in two states simultaneously – or additional facets beyond that – acted as his real muses, and his ability for somehow conveying their varied personas in an extremely condensed and seemingly laconic one picture remains breathtaking, unparalleled in portrait history. His peak performance often occurs when facing difficult individuals: the bigoted Ezra Pound cries out from the anguish of existence, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor appear as a scared wide-eyed Beckett couple. Even those he respected were enhanced by his vision for their inconsistencies: Stravinsky looks at us with a direct look that is almost stricken and calculating, as well as a gruff creative master and an individual of strategy and drive, a genius and a rug merchant.

WH Auden is a druid and oracle, countenance showing concern, and a mute humorist on an ungainly walk, a traveler in downtown New York in his bedroom slippers in the snow. (“I awakened to snowfall, and I wished to capture Auden amidst it,” the photographer recounted, and he called the likely confused yet agreeable poet and asked to take his picture.) His photograph of his longtime companion the writer Capote shows him as considerably brighter than he let on and darker than he confessed. Regarding the older Dorothy Parker, Avedon's admiration for her character didn't diminish for her face becoming less “beautiful”, and, truthfully documenting her decline, he highlighted her fortitude.

Overlooked Portraits

An image I once missed is the one featuring Harold Arlen, the celebrated music writer who combined blues music with jazz to Broadway melody. He belonged to a group of individuals {whom Avedon understood unconditionally|that A