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Artist or Maker: Richard Avedon (1923-2004)
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Provenance: Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
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Literature: R. Avedon, Portraits Richard Avedon, New York, 1976, n.p.
R. Avedon, Evidence, 1944-1994 Richard Avedon, New York, 1994, p. 150.
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Notes: Richard Avedon's portrait of Andy Warhol has become one of the most iconic and instantly recognizable images from the late 1960's-a distinct moment in the history of not only New York City and Warhol's demi-monde of The Factory but also of an American nation at a time of significant cultural unrest.
On June 3, 1968, Warhol was shot by Valerie Solanas, a prostitute and fringe member of The Factory (Warhol's avant garde film production studio famous for its wild bohemian lifestyle replete with drugs, sexual ambiguity and intense creative production). She was a self proclaimed hater of men, and the author of the SCUM (Society for Cutting up Men) Manifesto, which she distributed on the street. Under the delusion that Warhol intended to produce films from her writings, Solanas shot Warhol and a number of Factory members in a fit of rage. Warhol survived while Solanas was sentenced to prison.
Avedon's portrait, aside from the highly charged emotional tenor of the image itself, also taps into images that have been registered and firmly woven in the cultural thread of American history. As Mina Fineman of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York notes,
"Avedon's photographs are unrivaled documents of our time. He created an encyclopedia of the key players in the counterculture, the intellectual culture, politics and the arts" (Los Angeles Times, October 1, 2004).
