Richard Avedon: In the American West

This fortieth-anniversary edition of Richard Avedon’s iconic In the American West is a lush reissue of his legendary book, originally published by Harry Abrams in 1985. Avedon’s landmark series—commissioned in 1979 by the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas—is the result of a five-year project that saw him travel through twenty-one states, photographing more than a thousand ordinary people against a seamless white backdrop. Avoiding the landscape imagery that had defined representations of the West in earlier photography, he decided to present the region through images of its inhabitants. The result is a key achievement within Avedon’s oeuvre and a defining moment for contemporary portraiture. This large-format publication reproduces 103 black-and-white photographs from the series and includes a foreword by Avedon and an essay by photographer Laura Wilson, who assisted Avedon on the project.