Biography provided by Focal press
 
Closely working with his mentor, Brodovitch, at Harper's Bazaar (1945-1965), Avedon became a dominant practitioner of fashion photography. He opened the Richard Avedon Studio in New York City in 1946 and was a staff photographer for Vogue (1966–1990), and The New Yorker (1992–2004). His large format studio portraits isolated people from their environment by placing them in a white seamless void. Avedon's style embraced the minute details of the terrain of the human face and not the idealization of the sitter, reading more like topographic maps than traditional portraits.
 
(Author: RH)
 
Michael Peres (Editor-in-Chief), 2007, Focal Encyclopedia of Photography, 4th edition, (Focal Press) [ISBN-10: 0240807405, ISBN-13: 978-0240807409] (Used with permission)
 
Approved biography
Courtesy of the Victoria & Albert Museum (London, UK)
 
Richard Avedon has transformed fashion photography and portraiture alike, creating an instantly identifiable aesthetic which has influenced countless others. His 'signature' large format studio portraits of politicians, writers and artists render the sitters "symbolic of themselves", as he put it. His use of stark white backgrounds and life-size printing places viewers in a new relationship to the photographic image - a physical and almost confrontational one. His ability to create visual tension and surprise through unexpected contrasts is unparalleled.
 
This biography is courtesy and copyright of the Victoria & Albert Museum and is included here with permission.
 
Wikipedia
 
Richard Avedon (May 15, 1923 - October 1, 2004) was an American fashion and portrait photographer. He worked for Harper's Bazaar, Vogue and Elle specializing in capturing movement in still pictures of fashion, theater and dance. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century".