synopsis
Internationally acclaimed for his portraits of powerful and accomplished people and women of great beauty, Richard Avedon was one of the twentieth century's greatest photographers―but perhaps not the most obvious choice to create a portrait of ordinary people of the American West. Yet in 1979, the Amon Carter Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, daringly commissioned him to do just that.
The resulting 1985 exhibition and book, In the American West, was a milestone in American photography and Avedon's most important body of work. His unflinching portraits of oilfield and slaughterhouse workers, miners, waitresses, drifters, mental patients, teenagers, and others captured the unknown and often-ignored people who work at hard, uncelebrated jobs. Making no apologies for shattering stereotypes of the West and Westerners, Avedon said, "I'm looking for a new definition of a photographic portrait. I'm looking for people who are surprising―heartbreaking―or beautiful in a terrifying way. Beauty that might scare you to death until you acknowledge it as part of yourself."
Photographer Laura Wilson worked with Avedon during the six years he was making In the American West. In Avedon at Work, she presents a unique photographic record of his creation of this masterwork―the first time a major photographer has been documented in great depth over an extended period of time. She combines images she made during the photographic sessions with entries from her journal to show Avedon's working methods, his choice of subjects, his creative process, and even his experiments and failures. Also included are a number of Avedon's finished portraits, as well as his own comments and letters from some of the subjects.
Avedon at Work adds a new dimension to our understanding of one of the twentieth century's most significant series of portraits. For everyone interested in the creative process it confirms that, in Laura Wilson's words, "much as all these photographs may appear to be moments that just occurred, they are finally, in varying degrees, works of the imagination."
technical information
publisher : University of Texas Press
2003
132 pages
dimensions : 23 x 28 cm
2003
132 pages
dimensions : 23 x 28 cm
about Laura Wilson
Laura Cunningham was born and raised in Norwell, Massachusetts. She majored in art at Connecticut College for Women, graduating in 1961. She married Robert Wilson in 1963, and the couple moved to Dallas, Texas, in 1965.
Wilson was drawn to photography as a young girl when she became interested in family photographs. Some of her earliest photographs are of her three young sons: "I had majored in painting in college. But with three active little boys, I didn't have time to paint. My uncle, Jack Cunningham, gave me a camera. I realized at once that the boys were perfect subjects." Wilson's son, Owen credits his and his brothers' comfort in front of a camera to being frequently photographed by their mother.
Wilson's professional career was launched in 1979 when Richard Avedon hired her to assist with his exhibition and book In the American West, which was commissioned by the Amon Carter Museum. Wilson traveled with Avedon for six years, helping him find subjects to photograph. Wilson also wrote the text for In the American West. Wilson's work with Avedon helped her become deeply familiar with the West and provided inspiration for her later projects. Wilson's photographs acknowledge the spectrum of cultures that occupy the West.
From growing up in the New England countryside, Wilson arrived at her interest in photographing people outside of mainstream America. "I became interested in men and women who are trying to live an idealized life against the odds." In a January 2018 interview she described her artistic attraction to isolated groups of people, saying, "I am drawn to people who live in an enclosed world — those people who live in isolated communities, whether by circumstance or accomplishment; I was curious about these groups and wanted to know more... my wish, as Eudora Welty wrote, 'would be not to point the finger in judgement but to part a curtain, that invisible shadow that falls between people.'"
Wilson frequently refers to photography's ability to mitigate loss and stem the flow of time.
Wilson has lectured on photography at Harvard University, the International Center of Photography in New York City, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the University of Texas at Austin.
She is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters and the Philosophical Society of Texas. She serves on the board of the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin; Humanities Texas; Meadows Museum; and William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University. In 2019, she was inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame.
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publisher : University of Texas Press
2003 (first edition)
2003 (first edition)