LOT Phillips de Pury & Company  /  PHOTOGRAPHS PART I  / 

39

RICHARD AVEDON (American, b. 1923) ANDY WARHOL AND MEMBERS OF THE FACTORY signed

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RICHARD AVEDON (American, b. 1923) ANDY WARHOL AND MEMBERS OF THE FACTORY signed
RICHARD AVEDON (American, b. 1923) ANDY WARHOL AND MEMBERS OF THE FACTORY signed "Avedon" in black ink on verso artist's stamp with copyright information, negative numbers "48, 21, 68," edition "edition of 50, number 1," title, member identification, location and date "l to r: Paul Morrissey, director; Joe Dallesandro, actor; Candy Darling, actor; Eric Emerson, actor; Jay Johnson, actor; Tom Hempertz, actor; Gerard Malanga, poet; Viva, actress; Paul Morrissey; Taylor Mead, actor; Brigid Polk, actress; Joe Dallesandro; Andy Warhol, artist, New York City, 10-30-69" in black ink on verso 3 gelatin silver prints mounted together on canvas overall: 8 x 29 3/4 in. (20.3 x 75.6 cm) each: 8 x 10 in. (20.3 x 25.4 cm) October 30, 1969 printed 1975 this work is number 1 from an edition of 50 (only 25 were released) PROVENANCE Private Collection, NEW YORK LITERATURE Richard Avedon and Harold Rosenberg, PORTRAITS, New York, 1976, n.p. (illustrated) Richard Avedon, AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY, LONDON, 1994, n.p., no. 131 (illustrated on six pages) Jane Livingston and Adam Gopnik, EVIDENCE 1944-1994, RICHARD AVEDON, NEW YORK, 1994, pp. 74-75 and 151 (10 x 35 feet version illustrated, pp.74-75 other photographs from the sitting illustrated) AVEDON: THE SIXTIES, NEW YORK, 1999, pp. 78-83 (illustrated) At the age of 19, Avedon became a merchant marine and was assigned the task of taking portrait photos for identification cards. He said of this experience, "I must have taken pictures of maybe one hundred thousand baffled faces before it ever occurred to me I was becoming a photographer" (Livingston, p. 56). Avedon maintained elements of this unusual training in his later portraits, which are set against his signature white, empty backgrounds, with no effort made to hide a subject's physical peculiarities. Although it is interesting to understand the roots of his portrait photography, the mature portraits are the result of a more complex and considered process and aesthetic. In 1969, Avedon began using the cumbersome 8 x 10 inch view camera. "With the eight-by-ten camera I stand next to the lens, facing the subject with nothing between us, in a kind of locked relationship....The large format camera can't follow anything that moves, so we are both, the subject and I, stuck with the discipline of its limitations. This creates a kind of tension that is part of what I am looking for" (Livingston, p. 60; from an 1993 interview with the artist). In his group portraits, however, Avedon creates his own form of movement, despite the constraint of such a static process. The narrative-cycle format has been spatially choreographed so that the figures seem to move across a stage, sometimes reappearing with different costumes (or lack thereof). This improvised set seems appropriate to the subjects of the present work, considering that most of them were actors. In 1975, the 10 x 35 foot triptych was printed and installed on the walls of the Marlborough Gallery, New York. No one had ever exhibited photographs of such epic proportion in a gallery. The mural approximated a theatrical stage in its panoramic format and larger-than-life actors. The original mural-size photograph is currently being shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's RICHARD AVEDON: PORTRAITS exhibition. The present edition was also printed in 1975. Although Avedon employs a reductive aesthetic in The Factory portrait, human elements are nonetheless revealed. When Avedon asked The Factory members to please remove their clothes, some members complied, others refused, and the image gained a less controlled appearance. Sexual identities are revealed, as well as a human vulnerability. While other group portraits of The Factory have been made, including one by Philippe Halsman, the present work is the most intriguing in format and choreography.
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