10 of Richard Avedon's Best Unpublished Photos
Celebrate the famed photographer on his birthday with a look back at his most iconic unpublished imagery.
The cliche “the camera never lies,” is joyfully contradicted by Richard Avedon’s photography. An American fashion, portrait, and political photographer, Avedon once said to the International Photography Hall of Fame: “There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.” This sentiment has been echoed by other photographic thought leaders like Susan Sontag in her 1977 essay collection On Photography, and is what differentiates Avedon’s photographic style from that of his peers.
While pre-Avedon fashion photography imagined women as aloof and austere, the revolutionary creator sought to invent a more exciting, inviting, and ultimately more human woman. Ironically, the personalities and narratives of his models were almost always a greater reflection of the photographer himself than of his subjects. From Audrey Hepburn, to Elizabeth Taylor, Twiggy, Marilyn Monroe, and so many more, there is hardly a female star dead or alive Avedon hasn’t worked with.
In honor of his birthday this year, L’OFFICIEL rounds up his best unpublished works you might have missed.
