Image: Richard Avedon, Gloria Swanson, actor, New York, September 4, 1980, gelatin silver print © The Richard Avedon Foundation
‘Richard Avedon Immortal: Portraits of Aging, 1951–2004’ opens at The Image Centre in Toronto on September 9, bringing nearly 100 portraits by the American photographer to the South and North Galleries. Organized by The Image Centre at Toronto Metropolitan University and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the exhibition runs through December 5, 2026.
The show focuses on aging as a sustained concern in Avedon’s work. Beginning with his early years at Harper’s Bazaar, Avedon challenged conventions of idealized celebrity portraiture, rendering the marks of time on his sitters’ faces with what the exhibition describes as unsparing clarity. The selection extends from the early 1950s to 2004.
Among the figures represented are Toni Morrison, Gabriel García Márquez, Duke Ellington, Ronald Reagan, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Patti Smith, Truman Capote and the Dalai Lama.
The exhibition also includes a restaging of ‘Jacob Israel Avedon’, Avedon’s 1974 Museum of Modern Art exhibition, which chronicled his father’s final years in nine portraits.
Paul Roth curates ‘Richard Avedon Immortal’. Roth is director of The Image Centre at Toronto Metropolitan University and previously served as executive director of The Richard Avedon Foundation in New York. He edited and co-authored the 2025 publication ‘Richard Avedon: Immortal, Portraits of Aging 1951–2004’.
