Stardusted!

By Cathleen Medwick
Performance: Richard Avedon
Performance: Richard Avedon
By John Lahr and Richard Avedon
304 pages; Abrams

Richard Avedon, creator of some of the most glamorous, gritty, powerfully revealing black-and-white photographs of the modern age, was known for pinning a personality like a butterfly, capturing every intricate detail with his truth-seeking camera. Performance: Richard Avedon (Abrams), filled with iconic as well as rarely seen images of celebrity, from Barbara Streisand to Tilda Swinton, from Rudolf Nureyev to Jon Stewart, opens wide the curtain on this astonishing talent whose love of theatricality had him constantly winging from Broadway to Hollywood. "We all perform," he wrote. "It's a way of telling about ourselves in the hope of being recognized as what we'd like to be." Recollections of the master by Mike Nichols, Andre Gregory, and Twyla Tharp, among others, add to the starry mix.

 

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