Richard Avedon MMFA: “Every wrinkle tells a story” – Exhibition Review

Until August 9, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) presents a unique exhibition bringing together nearly 100 portraits taken by the famous American photographer Richard Avedon, all focused on the theme of aging. “Each wrinkle tells a story, an experience,” summarizes Mary-Dailey Desmarais, chief curator of the MMFA and holder of the Zhao-Ionescu Chair.

This is completely unprecedented. Yes, it’s a subject he has addressed throughout his career, but there has never been an exhibition devoted entirely to Richard Avedon’s exploration of aging, of age, of human dignitysays Ms. Desmarais, responsible for the Montreal exhibition.

Richard Avedon (1923-2004) is a major photographer of the 20th century. First famous for his innovative fashion images in magazines like Harper’s Bazaar et Voguehe then established himself as a great portraitist, producing refined and unvarnished photos that highlight all the subtleties of human faces.

The exhibition entitled Richard Avedon : Immortal. Portraits of passing time, 1951-2004 brings together portraits of cultural icons, including Samuel Beckett, Jorge Luis Borges, Truman Capote, Duke Ellington, Toni Morrison, Jean Renoir, Gabriel García Márquez and Patti Smith, but also of complete unknowns.

I give the example of the series In the American Westwhere Avedon took photos of people born into slavery, people who worked on farms and who had lost their armsexplains Mary-Dailey Desmarais.

They have such a strong outlook and experience that once again, we cannot turn our back on what Avedon captured in his photographs.

This qualifies a certain perception of Avedon that he was obsessed with fame, which was not the case, as we see in some of the portraits included in the exhibition.

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The memory of faces

The chief curator of MMFA recounts that when Richard Avedon began publishing portraits of older people, in the 1960s and 1970s, many of his photographs were perceived as brutal.

Often people were shocked because they were so used to seeing Avedon’s fashion photography, where editors encouraged airbrushing [lissage de la peau]erasing folds, wrinkles. We wanted to create an image of a kind of perfectionshe explains.

Portraits of aging are the opposite of this erasure of people’s reality. For Avedon, it was a way of addressing our collective mortality.

Culture with Claudia Hébert: The Richard Avedon exhibition at the MMFA

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If some portraits highlight their subjects particularly, like that of the Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni with his wife Enrica, others are less flattering, like that of the poet and writer Dorothy Parker.

However, Dorothy Parker really liked this photograph. It’s true that it’s hard to watch because it’s not a flattering portrait, but it’s a portrait that captures the weight of his human experiencesays Mary-Dailey Desmarais.

We’re talking about a great writer who also suffered in her life, who abused alcohol, and we see the traces of this on her face. There is a frankness in the depiction of the reality of his life that is extremely touching.

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Although it covers Avedon’s entire career, the exhibition gives an important place to the famous series Jacob Israel Avedonpresented for the first time at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) de New York and 1974.

It recounts the last years of life of the photographer’s father, who died of cancer, through nine portraits illustrating his decline. It is one of the most important projects of Avedon’s career. It was his first exhibition at MoMA and we recreated it here at the museumconcludes Mary-Dailey Desmarais.

Tickets for the exhibition Richard Avedon : Immortal. Portraits of passing time, 1951-2004 are available on the website of MMFA (new window). After Montreal, the exhibition will be presented at the Image Center of Toronto Metropolitan University in September 2026.