RICHARD AVEDON: FAMILY AFFAIRS Opens at National Museum of American Jewish History Today

Richard Avedon: Family Affairs-an exhibition featuring more than seventy portraits by the renowned photographer-opens at its exclusive U.S. venue, the National Museum of American Jewish History (NMAJH) in Philadelphia, PA, today, April 1. Based on the 2014 exhibition organized by and drawn from the collection of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem,

Family Affairs focuses on two important bodies of Avedon's work: the photographic mural project that produced Allen Ginsberg's family, Paterson, New Jersey, May 3, 1970 and the Rolling Stone portfolio of sixty-nine portraits entitled "The Family" taken in the run up to the 1976 presidential election. Together, they form an intimate and incisive family album of American power and influence. The exhibition will remain on view through August 2, 2015.

A lifelong New Yorker, Avedon came of age at a time when many New York Jews identified with secular cosmopolitanism and considered the arts a venue for political activism. In 1969, Avedon-known since the mid-1940s as a leading fashion photographer-adopted what would become his signature portrait style: subjects posed singly and in groups against stark white backgrounds facing the camera. The works in Family Affairs capture this moment of transition in Avedon's career and demonstrate his central role as an artist who chronicled an era of conflicting ideas, radical politics, and shifting social mores.

Allen Ginsberg's family, Paterson, New Jersey, May 3, 1970 is a massive photographic mural that is part of a series that Avedon began to create in 1969. Photographed within an 18-month period, these murals were groundbreaking for their multiple panels as well as their socially conscious and provocative subjects. Three smaller murals from this series are also featured in the exhibition, including portraits of members of Andy Warhol's Factory, the Chicago Seven, and the Mission Council.

Avedon's Rolling Stone portfolio is a powerful document of the homogeneity of the American establishment at the time. Avedon shot each of the 69 photographs with his Deardorff 8 x 10" camera to create arresting black and white portraits of individuals from America's political, financial, and intellectual elite, including: presidential candidates Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford; A.M. Rosenthal, managing editor of the New York Times; and W. Mark Felt, later revealed to be "Deep Throat." Avedon's subjects also included others at the epicenter of the events of the time (and some who still are today)-including governors, senators, congressmen/women, and a wide swath of varied government officials (Bella Abzug, Jerry Brown, George H.W. Bush, Barbara Jordan, Edward Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Daniel Moynihan, and Donald Rumsfeld, to name a few), media moguls and journalists (Katharine Graham, I.F. Stone), labor leaders/activists (Cesar Chavez, Ralph Nader), philanthropists (Walter Annenberg), and many more.

In order to provide a compelling collective historical portrait of American cultural and political life during the late 1960s and 1970s, NMAJH's presentation of Family Affairs will feature additional photography and text, as well as a projection of a film clip of Avedon from a documentary by D.A. Pennebaker.

Located in the heart of the city, on Independence Mall, in an Ennead Architects-designed building, the NMAJH brings to life the 360-year history of Jews in America and invites visitors of all backgrounds to reflect on how their histories and identities share and are shaped by the American experience.

Image: Allen Ginsberg's Family, Paterson, New Jersey, May 3, 1970 © The Richard Avedon Foundation. From the Collection of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Gift of the American Contemporary Art Foundation, Leonard A. Lauder, President, to American Friends of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

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