RICHARD AVEDON : HAMILTONS GALLERY, LONDON

Richard Avedon first met Ingrid Boulting in 1969 on a shoot for Vogue magazine. Initially trained as a ballerina in the Royal Ballet School in Richmond, Boulting’s youthful and sophisticated presence quickly established her as a symbol of the ‘Swinging London’ scene. Boulting would become the face of Biba Cosmetics, launched by the Biba department store. The store was a hangout for stars such as Mick Jagger and David Bowie and soon became an emblem of London’s youthful and rebellious era.

Boulting was working as a model in London when Avedon persuaded her to come to New York City, where she quickly became one of Avedon’s preferred models. The pair collaborated on a number of projects including a series of photographs that would form part of Avedon’s solo exhibition at the Marlborough Gallery in New York City in 1975. His pioneering bridge between fashion photography and fine art was critically and commercially acclaimed and cemented Boulting as one of the most coveted models of the period. She would go on to be photographed by other Modern Masters of photography such as Helmut Newton, Jeanloup Sieff and Irving Penn.

As a native New Yorker, Avedon spent countless hours at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in his formative years. It is no doubt where his fascination of the mysterious quality of portraiture was born,and would have provided him with visual references from Art History that he would return to throughout his career. Boulting’s ethereal presence and flowing hair recall Pre-Raphaelite muses painted by Sir Edward Burne-Jones and Lord Leighton which adorned the walls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Ara Gallant was another of Avedon’s collaborators. Gallant was a hair stylist and makeup artist who’s iconic ‘flying hair’ technique for Vogue in the 1960s often complemented Avedon’s innovative use of movement in his fashion photographs. The abstract quality to the shape of the waves on Boulting’s hair creating a timeless image. Avedon, Boulting and Gallant’s collaboration gathers a visual testimony to ingenuity that is an essential to the evolution of contemporary fashion photography.

This print was exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 1978 exhibition, which gathered the finest of Avedon’s fashion prints. This unique exhibition print, larger than life, exemplifies Avedon’s true mastery of the art of portraiture.

Throughout his life, Avedon maintained a unique style of portraiture that combined the rigor of the studio with the spontaneity of projects on location. Working sometimes for magazines, and often for his own account, he photographed portraits of people from every field and all walks of life. 

This portrait of Marilyn was taken in May 1957 during a shoot at Avedon’s studio. He later recalled this moment: “For hours she danced and sang and flirted and did this thing that’s—she did Marilyn Monroe. And then there was the inevitable drop. I saw her sitting quietly without expression on her face, and I walked towards her but I wouldn’t photograph her without her knowledge of it. And as I came with the camera, I saw that she was not saying no.”

In one of the most iconic portraits ever taken of this icon of glamour. Avedon manages to capture a rare moment of vulnerability where she lets the general public catch a glimpse of her personal life.