“I am so grateful that I have the capacity and the ability to make a living, support my family — which is the definition of being a man for my generation — support my studios, support my special projects, by doing advertising.” –Richard Avedon ( http://www.richardavedon.com/ )

“Avedon was the first person to come into photography as a fashion photographer, as a commercial photographer, and then, in a sense, declare himself an artist. And that was not well received. And he declared himself an artist quite vociferously. He didn’t get all shy about it and say ‘O please accept me’. He said ‘Here I am, get out of the way!’. And it goes on till this day. People excoriate him for his ego and for his own self-agrandizement or self-selling. And if he hadn’t done that we might still not know about him. He wouldn’t be getting the museum shows, because that isn’t something people would have come to him to ask him to do. The nature of the photographic world was just simply too tense and too boundaried for that sort of thing.” –Owen Edwards, critic

Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light. On YouTube in nine parts:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9