Marian Anderson, contralto, New York

Richard Avedon

June 30, 1955 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

As the great contralto Marian Anderson closes her eyes to focus on the music, Avedon fixes ours on her. She sings the Giuseppe Verdi piece she had performed months earlier at the Metropolitan Opera, when she became the first Black singer to take its stage. The photographer’s studio is sterile by comparison, but the white background—an Avedon trademark—trains attention on Anderson, accentuating the contour of her head and the tendrils of her hair. Though the photograph predates this exhibition’s group portraits, it anticipates the formal innovation of those works, particularly in its treatment of pictorial space. Avedon crops his subject such that she appears to burst forth from the frame—a choice he explained as "emphasiz[ing] the power and vitality" of Anderson’s art.

Artist

Richard Avedon

Date

June 30, 1955

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1961