Richard Avedon, Master of Cruel

The question was always a problem for Richard Avedon. Even in the final decade of his life and career as the most celebrated, ridiculed, honored, debated portrait and fashion photographer of his time, journalists and critics would posit the same intolerable, unbelievable notion: Is photography really art? And it didn’t sound much kinder coming from his friend Charlie Rose, playing the genial provocateur and devil’s advocate for the TV viewers at home in 1993. Anyone watching could have detected Avedon’s moment of pain. “Listen, that is such a bogus and nitwit thing to ask .”

Check it out here.