Richard Avedon's 'In the American West' Series Exhibited in Full for First Time in Europe at Fundación MAPFRE

Fundación MAPFRE in Madrid presents the first complete European exhibition of Richard Avedon's 'In the American West' series, originally produced between 1979 and 1984. The project began in 1978 when Mitchell A. Wilder, then director of the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, saw Avedon's portrait of ranch foreman Wilbur Powell and proposed a series focusing on people of the American West. Wilder died in 1979, but the museum team continued the initiative. Over several summers, Avedon photographed over seven hundred individuals—including workers, farmers, and drifters—against white backgrounds using natural Western light, often without looking through the lens but directly at the subject. The final selection of 124 portraits was published as the photobook 'In the American West' and first exhibited at the Amon Carter Museum in 1985, with negatives and a set of prints held in the museum's archive. The series marks a departure from Avedon's fashion work for Newsweek and Condé Nast, reflecting his personal drive for authenticity and his commitment to civil rights, focusing on those affected by the oil crisis and deindustrialization. Writer Rebecca Solnit recalled feeling initial shock at the perceived cruelty of the images in 1986, but soon recognized the faces as those of everyday people. The exhibition, organized in collaboration with the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris, runs from June 4 to August 30, 2026.