What Becomes a Legend Most

A portrait of the twentieth-century photographer examines how Avedon endured intense personal and professional discrimination to join an influential group of artists who transformed women's culture. Richard Avedon captured the iconic figures of the twentieth century in his starkly bold, intimately minimal, and forensic visual style. His work for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue transformed the ideals of women's fashion, femininity, and culture to become the defining look of an era. But during his lifetime Avedon was condescendingly dismissed as a "celebrity photographer." Gefter examines this intensely driven man who endured personal and professional prejudice, struggled with deep insecurities, and mounted an existential lifelong battle to be recognized as an artist. -- adapted from jacket