Richard Avedon
<p>Richard Avedon chronicled the latter half of the twentieth century with powerful portraits of artists, intellectuals, political figures, and events of the time. In a career spanning six decades, he turned fashion photography into an art form and reinvented the genre of photographic portraiture. His work is a vital part of the canon of the history of photography, and his donations of his work to the Smithsonian Institution have created a significant legacy of some of his most important images, including those in this book.</p>