Honesty without halftones. Photo classic Richard Avedon

Richard Avedon is the author of the most uncompromising black and white portraits, a classic of fashion photography. Seamless white background, bright studio light, nothing superfluous, only the personality and soul of the hero of the picture. Shooting at Avedon was compared to an interrogation. Before his lens, the most thoughtful public images crumbled to smithereens.

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Marilyn Monroe, frightened, hardly hiding her confusion, looks like a little girl in his portrait. Shy, tense Andy Warhol tries not to look at the camera, Charlie Chaplin, horns and fooling around, screwed up, vulnerable Ezra Pound. For many, shooting with Avedon was a kind of test for richness, depth and humanity.

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The photographer was born on May 15, 1923, in New York to a Jewish family. His ancestors emigrated from Russia at the end of the 19th century. When the photographer was 10 years old, he made the first portrait of the composer Rachmaninov, who lived in the neighborhood. The first youthful rebellion was that Richard refused to follow in the footsteps of his parents. Despite his great passion for fashion, he joined the philosophy department of Columbia University with the firm intention of becoming a poet.

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A year later, Avedon left his studies and in 1942 went to serve in the Merchant Navy, becoming an assistant photographer. He took photographs of sailors for identification cards, without realizing that it was they who became the harbinger of that uncompromising corporate style of the famous Avedon portraits. In the 80s, his most memorable scandalous advertising campaigns were filmed - with fifteen-year-old Brooke Shields for Calvin Klein and young Nastassja Kinski, on whose naked body a huge python writhed.

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Kinski's photograph was printed as a poster and sold 2 million copies. The uniqueness and talent of Avedon lay in the fact that he never sought to rest on his laurels. “I feel alive when I photograph, but my photographs always leave me feeling defeated. I will never be able to put everything that I see into them, ”he repeated, having success and tremendous experience behind him.

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"Unblinking" black-and-white portraits became a new phase of his career after his disillusionment with fashion and subsequently became the standard of his corporate style. Being photographed by Avedon himself was a sign that you were worth something. He photographed movie stars, musicians, artists, politicians, and public figures, and always did it with amazing, revealing honesty.

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Many were afraid to stand in front of his lens since Avedon literally “pinned” them to the wall. He waited for the moment of maximum vulnerability and only then pulled the trigger. Using a blinding white background, he was able to turn people into "symbols of themselves."