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AVEDON, RICHARD (1923-2004)
“Santa Monica Beach #2, California, September 30, 1963.” Silver print, 19
1
/
2
x15
1
/
4
inches
(49.5x38.7 cm.), with Avedon’s signature, in ink, on recto. 1963
[30,000/45,000]
This image appears in Richard Avedon’s classic photobook,
Nothing Personal
, which features a
remarkable text by his childhood friend, James Baldwin. The illustrated book, a dynamic blend of
Avedon’s iconic, penetrating portraits, and Baldwin’s tough, lyrical prose, is a seamless integration of
two piercing, poetic seers looking uncompromisingly at America and Americans at a cross-roads: Civil
Rights leaders, politicians on the Left and the Right, a man born into slavery, Nazis saluting, as well
as Allen Ginsberg and the Daughters of the American Revolution are all presented as aspects of the
American psyche — at once far apart and all-frothing in the year 1964.
But Avedon’s penultimate photograph, which was taken on Santa Monica beach, offers a loving, tender
pause to what is otherwise an uncomfortable, jittery visual narrative.The woman and child depicted here
grasp each other alone, gazing out over the open ocean. The advancing wave and implied expanding
space beyond, is somehow both menacing and promising. Baldwin’s beautiful text crystallizes the
moment, which offers a personal, metaphoric commentary about the political tumult of the 1960s: “For
nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is
always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock […] The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling
to each other, and children cling to us.The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break
faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.” The image, which is so unlike the
white-ground, stark portraiture associated with Avedon, seems somehow closer to the photographer’s
personal eye, while never straying from his overarching vision and special ability to create a compelling
portrait and capture the deep, extraordinary essence of his subject.
This unique print is quite rare, and, to our knowledge, has never appeared at auction.