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51
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
58/100Critics
44/100Scholars
Author:
Philip Gefter
Publisher:
Harper
Date:
October 13, 2020
In his acclaimed portraits, Richard Avedon captured the iconic figures of the twentieth century in his starkly bold, intimately minimal, and forensic visual style. Concurrently, his work for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue transformed the ideals of women's fashion, femininity, and culture to become the defining look of an era. Yet despite his driving ambition to gain respect in the art world, during his lifetime he was condescendingly dismissed as a celebrity photographer. What Becomes a Legend Most is the first definitive biography of this luminary--an intensely driven man who endured personal and professional prejudice, struggled with deep insecurities, and mounted an existential lifelong battle to be recognized as an artist.
What The Reviewers Say
Avedon’s trajectory bears a notable resemblance to that of the writer he claimed as a defining influence: Marcel Proust, an interloper among swans who in mining their world for poetry produced a work of profound insight and enduring beauty. Although not drawn by Gefter, a former New York Times journalist and the author of several volumes on photography, this analogy squares with his stated “belief in Avedon as one of the most consequential artists of the 20th century.' Accordingly, his aim in What Becomes a Legend Most is 'to make a case for Avedon’s place of achievement alongside his peers in the pantheon of 20th-century arts and letters.'.
Incontrovertibly Philip Gefter did his homework when it came to writing about the lives, both professional and personal, of Richard Avedon. Gefter goes into overdrive to the point of minutiae overload.
... wise and ebullient.
... takes Avedon at his own estimation as a serious 20th-century artist. It creates a dense, convincing portrait of a man with huge talent and a gift for life.
