New York: Harry N. Abrams/MoMA, 2002.

Hardcover. 4to.; 64 accordion-fold pages; 55 tritone images; text and images clean and bright; bound in cloth boards with tritone portraits on back and front covers; corners sharp; in near fine condition. Original white slip case with image of “the beekeeper” on front; shelf-wear to edges; small frayed flap at bottom. Spanning the artist’s entire career, from the late 1940s through his most recent work, Richard Avedon Portraits offers a superb selection of his photographic portraits. With uncompromising directness, Avedon portrayed his subjects against a white background, with no extraneous details to distract from the essential specificity of face, gaze, dress, and gesture. This challenging innovation, coupled with the artist’s intense interest in his subjects and mastery of his craft, resulted in mesmerizing portraits—among them Truman Capote, Willem de Kooning, Samuel Beckett, Francis Bacon, and Marilyn Monroe, as well as the uncelebrated Americans of his project, In the American West that rival the greatest works in the portrait tradition. Richard Avedon Portraits is published to accompany a major exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.