Avedon's France — Old World, New Look
Recognised and celebrated worldwide, Richard Avedon had a special relationship with France. His photographs are on show at the BnF.
Richard Avedon (1923–2004) was an American fashion photographer who became a portraitist. The American photographer's singular ties with France are at the heart of an exhibition gathering more than 200 of his works at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, titled ""
Fashion and portraiture
His photographic career began in 1942, during the Second World War. He served as a photographer's assistant and took ID photographs of Navy crews. In 1944, he worked as an advertising photographer for a department store, and in 1946 he provided photographs to magazines such as and . In the 1950s, he moved away from fashion-photography conventions in which models seem to feel nothing. In August 1967, Avedon shot two famous series of . The first became one of the group's first major posters: four individual colour portraits and a montage of four black-and-white portraits.
Avedon and France
Recognised and celebrated worldwide as a fashion photographer and for his celebrity portraits, Richard Avedon had a special relationship with France. From 18 October 2016 to 26 February 2017, the exhibition explores the manifestations of this attachment, which runs through his work from the 1940s, when he came to Paris to photograph the fashion collections for Harper's Bazaar , through to his collaboration with the magazine from 1985 onwards. In between, he returned in 1968 to work on the work of Jacques Henri Lartigue.
With each encounter, Avedon reinvents himself and enriches the photographic image with other art forms: text, the book, cinematic narration, dance… The is thus told around a film, a book and a magazine, which mark as many key moments of his journey.
Many portraits are on display, including those of Jean Cocteau, Coco Chanel, Catherine Deneuve, Jean Genet, François Truffaut, Jeanne Moreau, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Yannick Noah, Isabelle Adjani, Yves Montand, and Simone Signoret…
More about Avedon's France
François-Mitterrand site
- Access via the EAST entrance, opposite 25 rue Émile Durkheim (steps) or avenue de France (step-free), near the MK2-Bibliothèque cinema entrance, 75013 Paris.
- Postal address: Quai François-Mauriac, 75706 Paris Cedex 13
Hours
- Tuesday – Saturday, 10am to 7pm
- Sunday, 1pm to 7pm (ticket desks close at 6pm)
- Closed Mondays and public holidays
Tickets
- Full price: €9 (combined ticket for 2 exhibitions: €11)
- Reduced price: €7 (combined ticket for 2 exhibitions: €9)
- FNAC bookings at 0892 684 694 (€0.34 incl. tax/min) and at www.fnac.com
With the support of
In partnership with
Le Monde- Le Point- France Inter - Madame Figaro - France 3 - Polka