Queer Places:
407 E 75th St, New York, NY 10021
430 Old Montauk Hwy, Montauk, NY 11954
Richard Avedon (May 15, 1923 – October 1, 2004) was an American fashion and portrait photographer. Although he spent most of his 60-year career with the glamor magazines Harper's Bazaar and Vogue, his most distinctive work can be found in his no-frills, black-and-white celebrity portraits. Among Avedon's most famous images: a supine Nastassia Kinski wearing only a python; a close-up of painter Andy Warhol's bullet-scarred torso; a Chanel-clad model cavorting with a pair of live elephants. Of his art Avedon once said, "All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth." A major retrospective of Avedon's photographs was held at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2002.
In 1944, Avedon married 19-year-old bank teller Dorcas Marie Nowell, who later became the model and actress Doe Avedon; they did not have children and divorced in 1949.[31] The couple summered at the gay village of Cherry Grove, Fire Island, and Avedon's bisexuality has been attested to by colleagues and family.[32] He was reportedly devastated when Nowell left him.
In 1951, he married Evelyn Franklin; she died on March 13, 2004.[33] Their marriage produced one son, John Avedon, who has written extensively about Tibet.[34][35][36][37]
In 1970, Avedon purchased a former carriage house on the Upper East Side of Manhattan that would serve as both his studio and apartment.[38] In the late 1970s, he purchased a four-bedroom house on a 7.5-acre (3.0 ha) estate in Montauk, New York, between the Atlantic Ocean and a nature preserve; he sold it for almost $9 million in 2000.[37][39]
Avedon's nephew is martial arts actor Loren Avedon.
Avedon's grandson is the photographer Michael Avedon.
According to Norma Stevens, Avedon's longtime studio director, Avedon confided in her about his homosexual relationships, including a decade-long affair with director
Mike Nichols.[40][41]
On October 1, 2004, Avedon died in a San Antonio, Texas, hospital of complications from a cerebral hemorrhage. He was in San Antonio shooting an assignment for The New Yorker. At the time of his death, he was also working on a new project titled Democracy to focus on the run-up to the 2004 U.S. presidential election.[2]
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