Every event in his circle provided an occasion, every occasion demanded a party, every party needed champagne and choreography. As Jamie Bernstein, the oldest daughter of his friend Leonard, remarked, like her father he had 'electric-Jew energy'. He was an impresario, a maestro, an exacting diva who bullied his employees, fired an assistant for 'lack of subservience', and demanded full control in museums and galleries exhibiting his work. Her portrait is personal and affectionate, but in addition her own memories are contrasted with well-chosen and candid interviews from his models, employees, friends and rivals who provide sharp, conflicting perspectives on his life and personality.Īs Avedon told one assistant, 'my personality is my business'. In one of those conversations, she says, Avedon urged her to write about him unreservedly: 'I don't want a tribute, I want a portrait, and the best portrait is always the truth. In hotel rooms late at night, 'Normie' heard and kept his most intimate secrets. He told her when it was time to get a facelift, sent her to a plastic surgeon, and nursed her tenderly until the bandages came off. Stevens became Avedon's studio director in 1976, as well as his press agent, business manager, travelling companion, work wife, dance partner, co-conspirator and intimate friend.

Like Tina Brown's diaries, which it somewhat resembles, Avedon is a whirlwind read, dropping names, exhibits, assignments, one-liners and wisecracks so fast I turned the 697 pages slightly breathless, taking top-speed notes like a snapping paparazza. He was a compulsive, disciplined worker, and maintaining star quality was work, too, a challenge he relished alongside his lucrative fashion assignments, legendary portraits, successful museum and gallery shows, numerous books, and quiet political protests. His peacock days became six peacock decades, from his first gigs with Harper's Bazaar in 1944 to his death in Texas in 2004 while on assignment for the New Yorker.

I'm not sure about Sickert, but Avedon was arguably a star who glowed in the galaxies of fashion, portraiture, photojournalism, Hollywood, Broadway and cafe society. Aronson, is attributed to the British artist Walter Sickert. Star-Quality: it can shine on peacock days like a plume of luck above your genius.' This epigraph to Norma Stevens' s exhilarating memoir, biography and oral history of Richard Avedon, written with Steven M.

Norma stevens richard avedon