Photographer to the stars, Richard Avedon was one of the century’s biggest names in photography.

Marilyn Monroe? Eisenhower? Bob Dylan? Hillary Clinton??? Yeah, he’s got pictures of all of them and then some. Avedon’s career as a photographer didn’t just start from snapping pictures of celebrities though. Born in New York city, young Richard Avedon was exposed to the fashion world from an early age. His Russian immigrant father owned a clothing retail on Fifth Avenue while his mother hailed from a family of dressmakers. He recalled that pivotal point in his childhood where he became obsessed with fashion photography: “One evening my father and I were walking down Fifth Avenue looking at the store windows. In front of the Plaza Hotel, I saw a bald man posing a very beautiful woman against a tree. He lifted his head, adjusted her dress a little bit and took some photographs. Later, I saw the picture in Harper’s Bazaar. I didn’t understand why he’d taken her against that tree until I got to Paris a few years later: the tree in front of the Plaza had the same peeling bark you see all over the Champs-Elysees.”

After dropping out of Columbia University after a brief stint of higher education, Avedon became a photographer of the Merchant Marines where he took identification pictures of all the sailors. A couple years later, he ended up studying photography with Alexey Brodovitch, art director of Harper’s Bazaar. Well, as you can pretty much guess, it was smooth sailing from there. Avedon fast became one of the biggest names in fashion photography. He really made it big when he did a photo shoot at a circus. The model, Dovima, from the famous photograph of her in a black Dior number stroking the trunks of two elephants had this to say about Avedon and his vision: “He asked me to do extraordinary things, but I always knew I was going to be part of a great picture.” You said it, Dovima!

Sky was the limit for Richard on the rise, who spent 20 years as a staff photographer for Harper’s Bazaar while keeping a little side business of portrait photography. His famous celebrity portraits include the Beatles, Barack Obama, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Buster Keaton, Andy Warhol and the Chicago Seven. Other noted figures included Macolm X, Dr, Martin Luther King Jr. and Toni Morrison. Avedon also did some pretty intense portraits of Vietnamese napalm victims and American soldiers. Shows that he wasn’t just all about the gliterrati.

Avedon considered his work a reflection of himself…even though his pictures aren’t very self-portrait-y. He would get up close and personal with his subjects and sometimes lead them into awkward conversations or ask psychologically unsettling questions. No wonder his larger than life subjects look so real and unmasked!