Richard Avedon: Murals & Portraits
This book was published on the occasion of Richard Avedon: Murals & Portraits at Gagosian, New York, the gallery’s first major exhibition of the artist’s work. Organized in collaboration with the Richard Avedon Foundation, the presentation centered on four ambitious photographic murals completed between 1969 and 1971: The Chicago Seven, Allen Ginsberg’s family, The Mission Council, and Andy Warhol and members of The Factory. These large-scale group portraits, unprecedented in scale and pointed in subject, became icons of their embattled times. In the exhibition, they were complemented by related portraits that Avedon made in the 1960s and 1970s.
The volume has a dedicated section for each mural, featuring essays by Louis Menard, Bob Rubin, Williams Shawcross, and Paul Roth, and is accompanied by images of archival material, including Avedon’s diaries, correspondence, and contact prints. It includes an introduction by Mary Panzer as well as an illustrated selected exhibition history and bibliography.