An Autobiography [Hardcover]

Richard Avedon (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0679409211 | ISBN-13: 978-0679409212 | Publication Date: September 13, 1993 | Edition: 1st

A startling new look at the life's work of a photographer who had an enormous impact on the way we see the world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this oversize assemblage of 284 photographs, a loose record of faces, moments and events that have shaped his life, eminent photographer Avedon excels in brutally frontal, stark black-and-white portraits that strip away pretensions and personas. Ezra Pound, Marilyn Monroe, Louis Armstrong, Rudolf Nureyev, Dorothy Parker, Janis Joplin, Andy Warhol, Samuel Beckett, Malcolm X and Alberto Giacometti are among the luminaries indelibly captured. The juxtapositions of images are often meant to provoke or unsettle. Poet Allen Ginsberg, in a nude embrace with his lover Peter Orlovsky, shares facing pages with dour Henry Kissinger. There are intimate family snapshots, glimpses of the fashion world, documentary photos of the civil rights struggle. Faces of a Colorado meat packer, a Texas trucker, mental hospital patients, Vietnamese napalm victims and corpses in Sicilian catacombs jostle against shots of Isak Dinesen, Gerald Ford, debutantes and rock singers, generating an implicit dialogue about power and powerlessness, fame and illusion. A haunting portrait of our age. First serial to Newsweek; BOMC alternate.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Readers expecting a memoir might initially be mystified by this compendium of splendidly reproduced photographs, but it makes sense for the renowned Avedon, once chief photographer at Harper's Bazaar and Vogue and now the first staff photographer at The New Yorker , to reconsider his life through images. This is no literal retelling of events; as Avedon notes in his brief preface, "I haven't lived chronologically. No one does." Avedon instead divides his images into three sections representing stages in the inevitable role-playing of life: "sermons of bravado," that celebratory phase when we are feeling our power; our exploration of roles we have adopted; and, finally, the moment when those roles lock us in. The divisions may not always seem so distinctive, but readers browsing through images of the well known--socialites, politicians, artists--and the unknown--street performers, the mentally ill, victims of napalm--will come away with a clear sense of Avedon's ability to make the ordinary extraordinary. Ultimately, this is an "autogiography" of us all--our hopes, disenchantments, and persistent vulnerability. Highly recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/93.
- Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 250 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (September 13, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679409211
• ISBN-13: 978-0679409212
• Product Dimensions: 14.8 x 12.3 x 2.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,630,193 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Richard Avedon, we hardly knew ye., November 25, 1999

By 

Ron Cowie - See all my reviews

This review is from: Autobiography (Limited Edition) (Hardcover)

Of course Richard Avedon is one of the most important photographers in this century. This is his retrospective book and it's very good. If you like Richard Avedon, this is an important book to own. If you are sitting on the fence about him, borrow your friends copy and, call it a day. An Autobiography is a great introduction to Avedon. However, for five bills, don't go gently into that dark night. This is a collector's copy and the price reflects that.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars all substance, no fluff, April 5, 2006

By 

Erik Hansen (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: An Autobiography (Hardcover)

i found an open copy of this at the book store last night so i got to look at it for the first time. short of a small intro by avedon at the front, this book is ALL pictures. i believe it was 283 photos, mostly full page shots or each taking up the full spread. no captions. no text. no stories. just photos. the back has a great index with farily large thumbnails of all the photos along with caption info. this book is worth $100 (especially if they are selling "ansel adams at 100" for $100) and it's totally worth it. the spine is bound rather loosely, but that's so the pages lay flat from cover to cover. if you are an avedon fan, or just a fan of photography, this is one you don't want to miss.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great book, May 7, 2006

By 

Ruben Osuna Guerrero "rosuna" (Madrid Espana) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: An Autobiography (Hardcover)

This is a big and heavy book.
All pictures are black and white. No text, only pictures. The print is very good. Each picture cover all the page (much bigger than a A4). My only complain is the few number of pictures spread in two pages. I don't like pictures divided in this way.
Except for the two-pages pictures, the book oposes two pictures, one in each page. Many comparisons are poweful, funny or interesting, but others are not. For instance, see the pages with the snake-hunter and Truman Capote, or the pages with Dick Hickcock and his father, etc.
There are many portraits, a few fashion pictures (too few) and a lot of "reportage" pictures. Portraits are the most interesting pictures of the book.
The book is organized in three parts. The three parts combine the three types of pictures (portraits, fashion, reportage), but the mixture is different in each case. I love parts 1 and 2 but the selection of the part 3 is strange, with many pictures taken at a mental hospital, victims of the napalm in Vietnam, etc. Most of these pictures are heavily granulated.
To sum-up, the quality of the book is very high, very interesting, great prints... but the selection is not 100% of my liking in the third part of the book.