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| In The American West | 
| Authors: Laura Wilson, John Rohrbach
Creator: Richard Avedon
Publisher: "Harry N. Abrams, Inc."
Category: Book
List Price: $75.00
Buy New: $43.26
You Save: $31.74 (42%)
New (23) Collectible (3) from $43.26
Avg. Customer Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 121101
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 184
Shipping Weight (lbs): 4.7
Dimensions (in): 14.4 x 11.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0810959283
Dewey Decimal Number: 779.2092
EAN: 9780810959286
ASIN: 0810959283
Publication Date: October 1, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Richard Avedon's In the American West is widely regarded as a landmark project in photographic history and a definitive expression of the power of photographic art. First published by Abrams in 1985 in conjunction with an exhibition at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, the book is being reissued to accompany a 20th-anniversary re-showing of the exhibition at the same museum.
Avedon, who died in 2004, was the greatest American photographer of his generation. For In the American West, he traveled throughout five years, meeting and photographing the plain people of the West: ranch workers, roustabouts, bar girls, drifters, and gamblers. The resulting book includes 120 exquisitely printed black-and-white photographs, an essay by Avedon on his working methods and portrait philosophy, a journal of the project by Laura Wilson, and a new foreword by John Rohrbach. The reissuing of this legendary book, out of print for more than a decade, is a major event in the photography world.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
 A timeless, classic photography book October 31, 2008
I remember seeing this book on its release in the 1980s. I couldn't afford it at the time, but I never forgot those images. Looking at them again, I can see the re-release of this group of Richard Avedon's work was fully justified.
These portraits are raw - each man, woman and child is exposed. Avedon recognised that each of the individuals in these portraits were an entity unto themselves. Their lives are in their faces; there is no need for props or pictorial backgrounds. Everyone was photographed against a simple sheet of white paper - a groundbreaking approach for this genre at the time. No staging, nothing concealed, nothing enhanced and there is no evidence of tweeking.
These photos distressed the romantic notion of 'the west' that prevailed until the late 1980s, and in turn contributed to its redefinition in popular culture. I still find myself looking at these pictures over and over again, wondering about the fate of some of these folks. This is another benefit of a book like this - it poses questions which cannot be easily answered - what happened to these people?
I'm so very thankful I got myself a copy. If you, like myself, are working on building a photography book collection, then this is an essential addition.
art in photography September 29, 2008
In my personal opinion Avedons book "In the American West" is pure art, as he describes his images "A photographic portrait is a picture of someone who knows they are being photographed. A "sitting" is an exchange of emotions. The picture emerges when this emotions meet." Now we all have seen his pictures in magazines and on the web but "In the American west" is a superb printed book where you can appreciate every detail.
Gorgeous April 12, 2008
I am not normally a fan of celebrity portraits, and perhaps moreso in Avedon's case. I find his celebrity work to be somewhat gimmicky, and not typically interesting to me. However, I recently was at B&N and took a look at "Avedon At Work: In The American West" and was very impressed by the photography (although not really by the book itself, which was really about the process, not the photos, besides the book being too expensive for what it was). This made me somewhat upset that all the normal Avedon work they had there was (primarily) his celebrity work, which, while bound and presented in a very interesting way, was not impressive to me visually.
Thus, when Avedon's book "In The American West" popped up on Amazon for me, I was quite thrilled, and since I needed the extra purchase for free shipping anyway, I snatched it up. When it arrived, I was thrilled. The book is large (as large as Schoeller's "Close Up") but is also covered in a plastic sleeve to protect it even further, which is a welcome addition to such a gorgeous book. The cover has a great feel to it, and the pages are all a good weight and clarity. The photos are large, but not so large that you can't take it all while holding the book at arms length. They are detailed, highly personal, and extremely complex and subtle. They are what good portraits are. In the beginning and end of the book, it has a few pages of text talking about the overall project, and some specific people, however it keeps it separate from the images, which I find to be better, since you can then simply go through the images and view them as they are, without any other context or distraction. The only accompanying text for each photo is a brief caption including name, date taken, and occupation or title (Drifter, Oil Field Worker, etc.). While often they are predictable, there are a few captions that truly add a new depth to the image they are attached to.
Overall this is a great book. It is unusual to find such high quality, large printed books for a great price like this, and so if you're considering, you should not pass this up.
TImeless mastery March 23, 2008
Avedon's post-celebrity period, arguably more poignantly presented in this publication than in any other of his works, is a real mark of his maturity as a portraitist. This is a high quality, candid, provacative and haunting record of the liminal characters of the American west, a project Avedon himself said he would have been happy spending the rest of his life completing. Essential reading for aspirant or active professional portraitists.
how does he do it? February 1, 2008
People like to say Avedon strips down everything, background and context and props and even shadow, but that's not really true, each of these portraits contains the pieces of a really complex narrative, and these people come to life in ways that are simultaneously erotic and sad, flamboyant and inarticulate, haughty and humiliated.
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