Nothing Personal

Richard Avedon Meets James Baldwin

BY: Claire Connors

Photographer Richard Avedon was used to breaking ground. A child of Russian immigrants, he first picked up a camera when he was 12, and while attending high school in the Bronx, worked on the school newspaper with classmate and future civil rights activist and writer, James Baldwin.

Over the years, the photographer had to fight for his images of African Americans and other people of color to be included in his fashion shoots, advertisements, and books. While Baldwin spent much of his early career writing essays about race, sexuality, and class.

Eventually Avedon and Baldwin’s working relationship would again cross paths and in 1964 they collaborated on the book Nothing Personal, about the state of life in America during the civil rights movement.

The seminal book of Avedon’s stark black & white images of politicians, celebrities, protesters, normal and not-so-normal folks, with a thought-provoking four-part essay by Baldwin, is being rereleased by Taschen this year—with a new introduction by writer and Baldwin scholar, Hilton Als, who was also a former colleague of Avedon’s at The New Yorker. Als chronicles the making of the book, the long personal and professional relationship of the two men, as well as his own friendship with Avedon.

An exhibit of material from the book is currently on view at Pace Gallery, 537 West 24th Street New York through January 13, 2018.