The Sixties Book

The Sixties is the product of a 30-year collaboration between photographer Richard Avedon and writer Doon Arbus, whose images and words combine in this volume to create a compelling portrait of one of the 20th century's most tumultuous decades. Avedon, the celebrated photographer whose portraits of some of the best-known personalities of our age have graced the pages of Harper's Bazaar, Vogue and The New Yorker magazines since the early 1950s, was prolific during the 60s. Looked at together, his images from those years create a visual time capsule. This large book is filled with a cacophony of Yippies, Black Panthers, Weathermen, Hare Krishnas, Andy Warhol Factory Superstars, pop artists, rock musicians, astronauts, pacifists, politicians, electroshock therapists, media correspondents, civil rights lawyers, anti-war activists and more, all shot against his signature white background. Arbus, a novelist and writer for magazines including Rolling Stone and The Nation (and the daughter of photographer Diane Arbus), conducted interviews with many of the subjects. And snippets of those conversations provide an intimate and unforgettable document of the tension, vulnerability, anger, recklessness, hope and empowerment many people experienced during that era. Brief biographies of the portrait sitters and a chronology that spans the first signs of the war in Vietnam in 1960 to its final conclusion in 1973 provide excellent context for the images. The Sixties is riveting. --A.C. SmithRead More