Richard Avedon, Truman Capote and the brutality of photography
EDITOR’S NOTE: During the period that Truman Capote lived in Brooklyn Heights, most notably, in the mansion at 70 Willow St., he was engaged in some of his most influential works, including “In Cold Blood”. The brutality in this famous book also applies to Capote’s own reaction to a Richard Avedon photograph of him taken later in his life. Ironically, he and Avedon had collaborated when younger on a famous book “Observations”, referred to in the article below.
What obligation does a portrait photographer have to their subject? Is it their duty to cast that person in the best light, or the most revealing light?
As chief curator at the University of Arizona’s Center for Creative Photography, I have worked with the images of fashion and portrait photographer Richard Avedon on a handful of occasions during my 16-year tenure. I curated my first exhibition of his work in 2007. The most recent show, “Richard Avedon: Relationships,” is now being exhibited in Milan.