Richard Avedon

Gagosian is pleased to announce Italian Days, an exhibition that juxtaposes more than twenty photographs by Richard Avedon shot on the streets of Rome, Sicily, and Venice—eighteen of which are from the series Italy (1946–48), presented in its entirety here for the first time—with iconic portraits of notable cultural figures that define his distinctive style. Images from a 1946 series portraying Zazi, a Roman street performer, are also included. Gagosian has represented Avedon’s work worldwide since 2011.

Beginning with his arrival in Rome in 1946 just after the end of World War II, when Italy was still largely inaccessible to visitors, Avedon made several trips to the country throughout the subsequent decade. The multiple series of photographs to which these exploratory trips gave rise were pivotal in the development of his sophisticated approach to portraiture. Avedon was particularly drawn to Italy’s beauty and devastation, to the breadth and power of its history, and to the enormous variety of human expression and resilience that he observed everywhere he looked. Revealing his drive for a genuine interaction between photographer and subject, Avedon’s Italian work exercised a profound influence on his practice, infusing every image with an inimitable depth of spirit and range of emotion.

Each of the pairings and larger groupings on view at the gallery in Rome reflects a different technique or compositional strategy with roots in Avedon’s Italian work. A famous 1957 portrait of a forlorn-looking Marilyn Monroe, for example, and a 1980 image of pawnbroker Ruby Holden from the iconic series In the American West (1979–84) both appear to have been anticipated by a Roman street portrait taken in 1947. The roots of the despair and joy Avedon captured in his depiction of Monroe can be found in Rome, as surely as his 1963 self-portrait recalls his image of a warm, proud young Sicilian boy who has emerged from the ashes of war to begin life anew.