​​​​​​​Avedon's France: Old World, New Look

France and French culture is a landscape of romance, art and intellectualism. It’s a place, almost sensual and feminine in its atmosphere, that has acted as the muse of artists of all shades. While our first instinct is to gravitate towards the literature and paintings that have blossomed under its creative aura, its contribution to photography is as notable as it is diverse. This is after all where Nicéphore Niépce made his ‘View from the Window of Le Gras’ photograph, the image that served to kick-start the photographic revolution. It is also where Henri Cartier-Bresson took ‘Derriere la Gare Saint-Lazare’, the defining image of the decisive moment.

- Robert M Rubin and Marianne Le Galliard

The country has served as inspiration for photographers far and wide, and one of the most notable is American fashion and portrait photographer Richard Avedon. Avedon was one of those photographers who could truly claim to have helped define what we mean when we use the words ‘style’ and ‘glamour’. He was one of a cadre of mid-20th century photographers able to exploit the growing trends of fashion-based consumerism and celebrity in order to create a body of work that to this day informs our perception of what it is to be beautiful and on-trend.

American Francophile