A colleague and I took a little field trip for the last hour of our day last Friday to catch the Avedon show at the SFMOMA before it goes away at the end of this month. What can I say? It’s divine. The whole show is really fantastic—HUGE prints of fascinating faces, including many very famous folks. But by far my favorite room was the very first one you walk into at the beginning of the show, which features a great selection of his early fashion work. You walk into the room and you’re facing a print—taller than you are—of the iconic image “Dovima with the Elephants.”
All images by Richard Avedon on view at SFMOMA
Now, as it happens, a poster of this image hung in the dining room of my childhood home the whole time I was growing up. So to see it in person, gigantic and glowing in that way really sumptuous black and white prints do, was such a treat—one of those images that’s seared into your brain and then you get a chance to see it in a whole new way—the comfort of the deeply familiar combined with the shock of the new. Terrific.
There were a ton of other great fashion images in that room as well—ones of Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton and a lot of other amazing 50s and 60s models. Here are a few that were my faves:
But maybe my most favorite of all was this one:
The print was teeny tiny compared to all the other huge prints—maybe 8 inches square. I just love this image of Avedon and Twiggy dancing together! It shows so well his gift for capturing motion, and it makes a shooting process that’s generally regarded as tedious look like so much fun!
And if this post has whetted your appetite for great black and white fashion photography, you might try this:
Or this:
And coming next year we’ll have a new edition of legendary fashion maven Diana Vreeland’s classic compilation of fashion and fashion-inspiring shots, Allure, with a brand new foreword by none other than Marc Jacobs himself! I am beyond excited.
Bridget Watson Payne
Associate Editor, Art + Design
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