The Amon Carter Museum of American Art (the Carter) presents Richard Avedon at the Carter, an exhibition celebrating the 40th anniversary of the inaugural presentation of Richard Avedon’s iconic In the American West series. This exhibition showcases forty of Avedon’s groundbreaking portraits alongside archival photographs captured by artist Laura Wilson, who accompanied Avedon on his travels, as well as rarely seen archival photos and ephemera from the installation and opening events at the Carter in 1985. Richard Avedon at the Carter is on view May 18 through August 10, 2025.
In 1979, the Carter commissioned photographer Richard Avedon to create a portrait of the American West. Intrigued by the challenge, Avedon spent the next five summers, from 1979 to 1984, traveling to 189 towns in seventeen states—Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming—and up into Canada. He conducted 752 sittings of the people he met on his travels, exposing 17,000 sheets of film through his large-format view camera. Each photograph of the series is titled with subject’s name, location, date, and often occupation. The resulting 1985 exhibition, In the American West, is widely regarded as a landmark work of portraiture and a definitive expression of the power of photographic art. Two generations later, the 124 photographs of In the American West series remain some of the most important and influential portraits of the 20th century, continuing to challenge the stereotypes of the West.
Richard Avedon at the Carter
May 18 – August 10, 2025
The Amon Carter Museum of American Art (the Carter)
3501 Camp Bowie Blvd.
Fort Worth, TX 76107
www.cartermuseum.org
