1. { Master Photographers of the 1950s, 1960s & 1970s * Diane Arbus Robert Mapplethorpe Richard Avedon (* New York City edition)

2. ▪ An American fashion and portrait photographer ▪ Avedon’s work helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture during the second half of the 20 th century ▪ Known for his minimalist, large-scale character-revealing portraits Richard Avedon (1923 – 2004)

3. ▪ Born in New York City in 1923 ▪ His mother came from a family of dress manufacturers and his father owned a clothing store ▪ As a boy, Avedon took a great interest in fashion and enjoyed photographing the clothes in his father's store ▪ From 1944 to 1950, he studied photography at the New School for Social Research, in N.Y.C.

4. ▪ He began work as a fashion photographer for Harper's Bazaar in 1945 ▪ In 1946, Avedon had set up his own studio and began providing images for magazines including Vogue and Life ▪ Starting in 1947, Avedon was assigned to cover the fall and spring fashion collections in Paris

5. ▪ Throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s, he created elegant black-and-white photographs showcasing the latest fashions in real-life settings such as Paris's picturesque cafes, cabarets and streetcars

6. ▪ Avedon showed models full of emotion, smiling, laughing, and often in action in outdoor settings, which was revolutionary at the time ▪ In 1955, he staged a fashion photo shoot at a circus ▪ The iconic photograph of that shoot, “Dovima with the Elephants,” features the most famous model of the time in a black Dior evening gown

7. ▪ Towards the end of the 1950s, Avedon became dissatisfied with daylight photography and open air locations and so turned to studio photography, using strobe lighting ▪ Avedon left Harper's Bazaar for Vogue in 1962, becoming the magazine’s lead photographer

8. ▪ In addition to his fashion photography, Avedon was also well known for his portraiture ▪ His black and white portraits were remarkable for capturing the humanity and vulnerability in famous figures Marilyn Monroe, Actress, New York City, 1957

9. ▪ His portraits are easily distinguished by their minimalist style, where the person is looking squarely in the camera, posed in front of a blank background

10. ▪ Starting in 1979, Avedon spent 5 years on a series of photographs titled In the American West, focusing on working class subjects such as miners, housewives, children, farmers and drifters ▪ Avedon visited state fair rodeos, carnivals, coal mines, oil fields, slaughter houses and prisons to find the right subjects B.J. Van Fleet, nine-year-old, Ennis, Montana, July 2, 1982

11. ▪ In 1992, Avedon became the first staff photographer in the history of The New Yorker magazine ▪ His last project, which remained unfinished, was a portfolio entitled “Democracy” that included portraits of political leaders ▪ His 2004 portrait of Barack Obama is one of his few colour photographs ▪ Avedon passed away on Oct. 1 st, 2004 at age 81

12. ▪ American photographer, known for her portraits of unusual people ▪ Arbus often took pictures of subjects who were considered deviant or marginalized (including circus performers, nudists, and transgendered people) Diane Arbus (1923 – 1971) Diane Arbus in Central Park, 1969

13. ▪ Born in New York City in 1923 ▪ Her parents owned Russek's, a famous Fifth Avenue department store ▪ The family’s wealth insulated Arbus from the effects of the Great Depression while growing up in the 1930s ▪ In 1941, at the age of eighteen, she married her childhood sweetheart Allan Arbus, who taught her about photography

14. ▪ In 1946, the Arbuses began a commercial photography business, with Diane as art director and Allan as the photographer ▪ They contributed to Glamour, Seventeen, Vogue, and other magazines even though they both hated the fashion world ▪ In 1956, Arbus quit the commercial photography business to focus on her own photography ▪To further her art, Arbus studied with photographer Lisette Model around this time

15. ▪During her wanderings around New York City, Arbus began to take photographs of the colourful people she found ▪She visited seedy hotels, public parks, a morgue and other various locales ▪These unusual images had a raw quality, and several of them appeared in the July 1960 issue of Esquire magazine The Vertical Journey: Six Movements of a Moment within the Heart of the City, Esquire, 1960

16. ▪Around 1962, Arbus switched from a 35mm Nikon camera, which produced grainy rectangular images, to a twin-lens reflex Rolleiflex camera, which produced more detailed square images Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park NYC, 1962

17. ▪These richly detailed square-format portraits became Arbus’ signature style ▪In 1963, Arbus was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for a project on "American rites, manners, and customs" Stripper, Miss Sata Lyte, in her dressing room with glasses Atlantic City, N.J., 1962

18. ▪Her methods included establishing a strong personal relationship with her subjects and re-photographing some of them over many years Identical Twins Cathleen (l) and Colleen, Roselle, N.J., 1966

19. ▪The first major exhibition of her photographs occurred at the Museum of Modern Art in an influential 1967 show called "New Documents" A young man in curlers at home on West 20th Street, N.Y.C, 1966

20. ▪Her work was described as "photography that emphasized the pathos and conflicts of modern life presented without editorializing or sentimentalizing but with a critical, observant eye." King and Queen of a senior citizens' dance, N.Y.C., 1970

21. ▪Arbus struggled with depression throughout her life ▪On July 26, 1971, she committed suicide by overdosing on drugs and cutting her wrists with a razor Tattooed man at a Carnival, M.D., 1970

22. ▪In 1972, a year after she took her own life, Arbus became the first American photographer to have photographs displayed at the Venice Biennale ▪Millions viewed traveling exhibitions of her work from 1972–1979 Two men dancing at a drag ball, N.Y.C, 1970

23. ▪Diane Arbus is the U female photographer of her generation ▪Her photos have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars ▪In 2006, the motion picture Fur, starring Nicole Kidman, presented a fictional version of her life story

24. ▪ An American photographer, known for his sometimes controversial large-scale, highly stylized black and white photography ▪ Mapplethorpe’s subjects included celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self- portraits and still-life images of flowers Rober Mapplethorpe (1946 – 1989)

25. ▪ Born in Queens, New York City in 1946 to a Roman Catholic family ▪ He studied for a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where he majored in Graphic Arts, but dropped out in 1969 before finishing his degree ▪ Mapplethorpe worked as a photographer for Andy Warhol's Interview magazine in the late 1960s, taking his first photographs using a Polaroid camera

26. ▪ In the mid-1970s, he acquired a Hasselblad medium-format camera and began taking photographs of a wide circle of friends and acquaintances, including artists, musicians, and socialites Deborah Harry, 1978

27. ▪ Mapplethorpe worked primarily in a studio, and almost exclusively in black and white ▪ His focus on intimate, sexually charged images brought Mapplethorpe significant critical attention Brian Ridley and Lyle Heeter, 1979

28. ▪ In the late 70s, Mapplethorpe grew increasingly interested in documenting New York’s underground sex and bondage scene ▪ He often participated in the sexual acts he was photographing ▪ Mapplethorpe was diagnosed with AIDS in 1986, but continued to work for several years Jim, Sausalito, 1977

29. ▪ He had his first major American retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1988 ▪ Mapplethorpe died of AIDS related complications on Mar. 9 th, 1989 ▪ That summer, an exhibit of his photos in Washington, D.C. sparked a national debate over the public funding of controversial artwork