I don't like Avedon's work

DREW WILEY · Mar 3, 2025

{This offtopic diversion was split off of the place it originally posted in: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/how-big-can-one-print-mf.212291/}

I recall seeing a lot of huge square blow-ups of Avedon's shots of factory workers and so forth against his usual blank white backdrops, up high on airport hallways (museum walls too). In their own deliberately gritty grainy manner, those big prints were effective as graphic icons, although long ago I got sick of encountering Avedon's pretentiousness everywhere. Only the ubiquity of Warhol is more obnoxious, worse than seeing Starbucks signs on every street corner.

Pieter12 · Mar 3, 2025

DREW WILEY said:
I recall seeing a lot of huge square blow-ups of Avedon's shots of factory workers and so forth against his usual blank white backdrops, up high on airport hallways (museum walls too). In their own deliberately gritty grainy manner, those big prints were effective as graphic icons, although long ago I got sick of encountering Avedon's pretentiousness everywhere. Only the ubiquity of Warhol is more obnoxious, worse than seeing Starbucks signs on every street corner.

I'd be curious where and when the shots were from. The only Avedon photos I know of workers (not necessarily factory workers, but coal miners) are from his In The American West. That was all large format and to my knowledge was never displayed in an airport. So I am guessing this is something else.

Don_ih · Mar 3, 2025

Pieter12 said:
I am guessing this is something else

Probably Gap ads....

GregY · Mar 3, 2025

Pieter12 said:
I'd be curious where and when the shots were from. The only Avedon photos I know of workers (not necessarily factory workers, but coal miners) are from his In The American West. That was all large format and to my knowledge was never displayed in an airport. So I am guessing this is something else.

Yes. In The American West photos were taken on 8"x10"

Pieter12 · Mar 3, 2025

Don_ih said:
Probably Gap ads....

I went to the Amon Carter Museum site where the In The American West collection is held. I found all of two factory workers out of 124 photos.

DREW WILEY · Mar 3, 2025

No - none of the Avedon shots I referred to were from the so-called American West series. He did all kinds of projects, and these were evidently 6X6 Hassie shots of NYC steelworkers etc blown up to about 6 ft wide prints - quite well known images, but apparently not here. Whether or not he used the same monotonous white sheet backdrop thousands of times over and over again, I can't say. And frankly, as far as I'm concerned, he never was in the West, but in his portable NYC studio mentality the whole time. I guess we can debate about that on an esthetics thread someday.

His 8x10 work was pretty gritty and contrasty itself. It matched his style. I wish more sheet film machine-gunners like him were still around. He'd waste about twenty 8X10 shots to get one good one, with an assistant on hand reloading the stack of holders. That would sure keep the Kodak film coating lines going strong if a few people had that habit today.

GregY · Mar 3, 2025

DREW WILEY said:
No - none of the Avedon shots I referred to were from the so-called American West series. He did all kinds of projects, and these were evidently 6X6 Hassie shots of NYC steelworkers etc blown up to about 6 ft wide prints - quite well known images, but apparently not here. Whether or not he used the same monotonous white sheet backdrop thousands of times over and over again, I can't say. And frankly, as far as I'm concerned, he never was in the West, but in his portable NYC studio mentality the whole time. I guess we can debate about that on an esthetics thread someday.

His 8x10 work was pretty gritty and contrasty itself. It matched his style. I wish more sheet film machine-gunners like him were still around. He'd waste about twenty 8X10 shots to get one good one, with an assistant on hand reloading the stack of holders. That would sure keep the Kodak film coating lines going strong if a few people had that habit today.

I'll just take the opposite tack, since clearly you don't care for Avedon's work...but that's your personal opinion.
For anyone interested in the project, there's a book written by his assistant Laura Wilson. Avedon West project spanned six years and was commissioned by the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth.

Avedon at Work: In the American West book by Laura Wilson

warden · Mar 4, 2025

GregY said:
I'll just take the opposite tack, since clearly you don't care for Avedon's work...but that's your personal opinion.
For anyone interested in the project, there's a book written by his assistant Laura Wilson. Avedon West project spanned six years and was commissioned by the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth.

Avedon at Work: In the American West book by Laura Wilson

I don’t have that one but I do have Avedon Fashion 1944 - 2000 and it is a fantastic record of his brilliance over the years. He was a true original.

Don_ih · Mar 4, 2025

DREW WILEY said:
6X6 Hassie shots of NYC steelworkers etc blown up to about 6 ft wide prints - quite well known images, but apparently not here

Maybe the Hasselblad with the viewing lens above the taking lens made by Franke and Heidecke....

DREW WILEY · Mar 4, 2025

Whether you like his nervous work or not, he was brilliant at attaining effect, so relative to himself, the whole brash gritty feel was appropriate. His revealing of the "underlying soul" of sitters was a calculated artifice - he just wore them out under hot lights until they grimaced. He did that to Marilyn Monroe, to the Royal Couple, to many others. And a number of images in American West were staged contrivances. The beekeeper playing a flute was infamous in that respect - he was imported from somewhere up north specifically for the photo session stunt.
There's probably plenty of information out there on his equipment style too; but I don't have time to bother with that today.

The Amon Carter Museum does have some crown jewels of photography which actually empathize with people of the West, like the work of Laura Gilpin. But I get the impression that Avedon was a diecast New Yorker all along, hunting down photo specimens as if he was bug collecting, seeking or downright fabricating NYC stereotypes of the West, as if Texas and the plains Sates even qualify to be accounted as part of the West.

Pieter12 · Mar 4, 2025

DREW WILEY said:
No - none of the Avedon shots I referred to were from the so-called American West series. He did all kinds of projects, and these were evidently 6X6 Hassie shots of NYC steelworkers etc blown up to about 6 ft wide prints - quite well known images, but apparently not here. Whether or not he used the same monotonous white sheet backdrop thousands of times over and over again, I can't say. And frankly, as far as I'm concerned, he never was in the West, but in his portable NYC studio mentality the whole time. I guess we can debate about that on an esthetics thread someday.

His 8x10 work was pretty gritty and contrasty itself. It matched his style. I wish more sheet film machine-gunners like him were still around. He'd waste about twenty 8X10 shots to get one good one, with an assistant on hand reloading the stack of holders. That would sure keep the Kodak film coating lines going strong if a few people had that habit today.

Those shots must have been an ad campaign. I have a number of his books and biographies, I was not aware of them. A search on the internet turns up the usual suspects. I'd love to know more about the series.

xkaes · Mar 4, 2025

DREW WILEY said:
as if Texas and the plains Sates even qualify to be accounted as part of the West.

Them's fightin' words, Pardner.

xkaes · Mar 4, 2025

DREW WILEY said:
he just wore them out under hot lights until they grimaced. He did that to Marilyn Monroe

Pieter12 · Mar 4, 2025

DREW WILEY said:
Whether you like his nervous work or not, he was brilliant at attaining effect, so relative to himself, the whole brash gritty feel was appropriate. His revealing of the "underlying soul" of sitters was a calculated artifice - he just wore them out under hot lights until they grimaced. He did that to Marilyn Monroe, to the Royal Couple, to many others. And a number of images in American West were staged contrivances. The beekeeper playing a flute was infamous in that respect - he was imported from somewhere up north specifically for the photo session stunt.
There's probably plenty of information out there on his equipment style too; but I don't have time to bother with that today.

The Amon Carter Museum does have some crown jewels of photography which actually empathize with people of the West, like the work of Laura Gilpin. But I get the impression that Avedon was a diecast New Yorker all along, hunting down photo specimens as if he was bug collecting, seeking or downright fabricating NYC stereotypes of the West, as if Texas and the plains Sates even qualify to be accounted as part of the West.

Well, the beekeeper is not playing a flute, although the shot was staged. But all of the photos were staged. They were not candid portraits, that is not what he set out to make. His photo of Marilyn was probably the most candid shot he took, not planned or intended. And he asked permission. Most of his subjects (with some notable exceptions) were professional models who put on a "face" and a look for the camera. In some instances, he tried to get past that, but never claimed he was capturing their true soul. He stated on several occasions that he could only photograph the surface. You certainly have a problem with him, but your logic fails. Just leave it at that.

Pieter12 · Mar 4, 2025

DREW WILEY said:
he just wore them out under hot lights until they grimaced. He did that to Marilyn Monroe, to the Royal Couple, to many others.

The photo go Marylin dates to 1957, by that time Avedon was pretty much exclusively using strobes. And the royal couple--I assume you are referring to King Edward and Wallis Simpson--were certainly manipulated, but not by tiring them out with hot lights. According to Avedon, they were just giving him pat poses, publicity shot stuff. He knew they were avid dog lovers, so he invented a story about the cab he arrived in having run over a dog and got the photo we know.

DREW WILEY · Mar 4, 2025

Well it's interesting to have a OK Corral showdown once in awhile. And as fer "fightin words", I'll bring along my hired gunslinger, Andre Kertesz, who famously (or infamously) called Avedon, "an advertising photographer, a zero". Kertesz had no reason to be jealous. He could have simply stopped funding the museum involved, and built one of his own. He was wealthy enough. With me, it's more just that I find Avedon's images obnoxious and generally pretentious. According to his own words, he seem to have been tongue in cheek on purpose at times, especially with respect to the over-the-top fashion trends of the 60's, which he obviously found interesting as overt subjects, but in a cynical manner. I stand by my comments that he never was in the West, at least mentally. He brought nervous brash Noi Yoik along with him.

Manipulated tricks per his sitters. Reminds me of how Karsh suddenly snatched the cigar out of Winston Churchill's mouth in order to make him glower. I have no Avedon books. Sick enough of him as it is. I might be willing to join any modern art museum society which has zero work by either Avedon or Warhol in it; both have become overbearingly tedious "must have" commodities by now.

Thanks, Pieter, for a little more insight into the trick in play with the Royal Couple. They might have resented the outcome, but Ex-King Edward could have been hanged for his Nazi sympathies if he hadn't been de facto exiled to the Bahamas first. I never could figure out what Wallis Simpson's appeal was; just a social butterfly, it seems.

Wearing down one's sitters was nothing new. Julia Cameron's guests dreaded her sessions. But her prints were in an entire class above anything Avedon ever produced via modern commercial labs, despite being pre-Raphaelite inspired as the trend of the day went.

warden · Mar 4, 2025

DREW WILEY said:
Andre Kertesz, who famously (or infamously) called Avedon, "an advertising photographer, a zero".

Where did he famously say this famous thing? Can’t seem to find it but I haven’t looked that hard. I wouldn’t have expected him to be a prick.

GregY · Mar 4, 2025

There are photos of Averdon's set-up for In The American West. There were no hot lights. I'm sure geographically, locations west of the Mississippi would qualify as in the west. It's common knowledge that there's no love lost between Texas. & California. Regardless of your opinion the work has been acknowledged as significant....& it's certainly a far cry from the Marlboro man ad set-ups.

Pieter12 · Mar 4, 2025

DREW WILEY said:
Well it's interesting to have a OK Corral showdown once in awhile. And as fer "fightin words", I'll bring along my hired gunslinger, Andre Kertesz, who famously (or infamously) called Avedon, "an advertising photographer, a zero". Kertesz had no reason to be jealous. He could have simply stopped funding the museum involved, and built one of his own. He was wealthy enough. With me, it's more just that I find Avedon's images obnoxious and generally pretentious. According to his own words, he seem to have been tongue in cheek on purpose at times, especially with respect to the over-the-top fashion trends of the 60's, which he obviously found interesting as overt subjects, but in a cynical manner. I stand by my comments that he never was in the West, at least mentally. He brought nervous brash Noi Yoik along with him.

Manipulated tricks per his sitters. Reminds me of how Karsh suddenly snatched the cigar out of Winston Churchill's mouth in order to make him glower. I have no Avedon books. Sick enough of him as it is. I might be willing to join any modern art museum society which has zero work by either Avedon or Warhol in it; both have become overbearingly tedious "must have" commodities by now.

Thanks, Pieter, for a little more insight into the trick in play with the Royal Couple. They might have resented the outcome, but Ex-King Edward could have been hanged for his Nazi sympathies if he hadn't been de facto exiled to the Bahamas first. I never could figure out what Wallis Simpson's appeal was; just a social butterfly, it seems.

Wearing down one's sitters was nothing new. Julia Cameron's guests dreaded her sessions. But her prints were in an entire class above anything Avedon ever produced via modern commercial labs, despite being pre-Raphaelite inspired as the trend of the day went.

You criticize Avedon for wearing down his sitters, then say it's OK because Julia Margaret Cameron did it. Manipulating is bad, except when Karsh does it? Beyond detesting Avedon and citing one other who did not like him or his work? Your point is? Avedon was never really accepted into the art world, he felt slighted by that that and tried very hard to be part of it. But (all hail) Robert Frank who worked for a while as a fashion photographer for Harper's Bazaar and was able to distance himself from the commercial world.

Don_ih · Mar 4, 2025

warden said:
Where did he famously say this famous thing? Can’t seem to find it but I haven’t looked that hard. I wouldn’t have expected him to be a prick.

The only references online to Kertesz calling Avedon a "zero" are in blocks of texts in this and other forums written by the same person.

Kertesz, speaking of this photo:

said, "At the time photography was zero — only the ordinary commercial kind of shots with little or no artistic value. Nobody photographed the chairs in the parks, in the Luxembourg Gardens, and in the Tuileries. I did. Of course, at that time I did not know that this was modern or unique." (from here)

With a bit of false equivalence, you can claim Kertesz was calling all advertising photography "zero" and maybe all advertising photographers "zero" ...

DREW WILEY · Mar 4, 2025

Oh my gosh; do your homework. That's not it, Don. Kertesz's antipathy or contempt toward Avedon's pictures is well known. Any decent biography about him would have it. It stems from how Avedon was offered a MMA show before him, so he outright refused a subsequent offer, along with the terse quoted remark (much later he did accept). Very different styles, to say the least. Kertesz was an early Leica devotee who took subtle poetic images for their own sake, which were often published, though his great monetary success came through a different avenue.

Avedon, on the other hand, was a "Gotcha" kind of guy, whether shooting commercially or for personal reason, resembling the "in your face" pie-fight strategy of advertising work. Avedon certainly wasn't that shallow, but it was his professional persona when it came to imagery. He made a lot of iconic images, even in his In the West series; but they tell us a lot more about himself than his subjects. He was superimposing upon them, rather than taking something in, a tack which I don't particularly appreciate. Robert Frank had the same kind of attitude when touring the country, a way to get attention, but with little depth, concocting stereotypes.

Pieter12 · Mar 4, 2025

Don_ih said:
The only references online to Kertesz calling Avedon a "zero" are in blocks of texts in this and other forums written by the same person.

Kertesz, speaking of this photo:

View attachment 392891

said, "At the time photography was zero — only the ordinary commercial kind of shots with little or no artistic value. Nobody photographed the chairs in the parks, in the Luxembourg Gardens, and in the Tuileries. I did. Of course, at that time I did not know that this was modern or unique." (from here)

With a bit of false equivalence, you can claim Kertesz was calling all advertising photography "zero" and maybe all advertising photographers "zero" ...

I would read that as all photography was considered of no artistic merit. Which was the case at the time. Atget certainly photographed similar scenes towards the end of his life, so Kertesz claim seems a bit fatitious.

DREW WILEY · Mar 4, 2025

Photography as an accepted art medium was pretty much a settled fact ever since the era of PH Emerson. Even though he recanted and took up rowing instead, the momentum was already unstoppable. Then came the championing of it by Stieglitz in this country. Color photography took longer to reach prime time, but it most certainly didn't begin with Eggleston as Szarkowski claimed, but far earlier.
NYC might have thought of itself as the center of the universe in this respect, and apparently still does, but the elephant in the room was that so many of the best known photographers were here on the West Coast instead. Even the Photog dept of the NY MMA was largely due to AA's instrumentation.

That pretty much disproves any contention that all photography of even later decades was considered of no artistic merit. The oblique reference to Kertesz on another post pertains to an earlier time in his own life, not the 60's incident. And by the way, there are more resources for relevant information than just web surfing. But the recent roto-tilling of the Google search engine incorporating adolescent AI certainly doesn't help.

Anyway ... glad all this has been transferred to another category of thread, where it properly belongs. Where enlarging lens magnifications are involved, I'll go back to the previous thread.

warden · Mar 4, 2025

DREW WILEY said:
Oh my gosh; do your homework.

Golly gee willikers, you brought it up my good man, and provided a direct attributed quote with no reference. I’m going to assume he never said such a thing unless I read differently from a trusted source. I don’t think Kertesz was that much of a tool.

RalphLambrecht · Mar 4, 2025

DREW WILEY said:
{This offtopic diversion was split off of the place it originally posted in: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/how-big-can-one-print-mf.212291/}

I recall seeing a lot of huge square blow-ups of Avedon's shots of factory workers and so forth against his usual blank white backdrops, up high on airport hallways (museum walls too). In their own deliberately gritty grainy manner, those big prints were effective as graphic icons, although long ago I got sick of encountering Avedon's pretentiousness everywhere. Only the ubiquity of Warhol is more obnoxious, worse than seeing Starbucks signs on every street corner.

I never get tired of looking at them.

I don't like Avedon's work

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