AVEDON, RICHARD. (1923-2004). Celebrated American photographer known for portraiture and fashion photography. An archive of 15 items including 12 TLSs, two signed correspondence cards, and a signed photocopy of a letter. All addressed to New York Senator DANIEL PATRICK “PAT” MOYNIHAN (1927-2003) and his wife, architectural historian ELIZABETH MOYNIHAN (1930-2023), whose daughter Maura Moynihan was married to Avedon’s son, author John F. Avedon.

TLS. (“Dick”). 1p. 4to. New York, April 19, 1990. To “Elizabeth and Senator” Moynihan. “What a lucky constituent I’ve been. What a lucky man John is! What a lucky, adoring father-in-law I’m going to be, I mean, already am. [With holograph closing] Really, looking forward…”

TLS. (“Evie“ – Avedon’s wife, Evelyn, née Franklin, and “Dick”). 1p. 4to. New York, May 4, 1990. To Elizabeth and Pat Moynihan. “What great pleasure the three of you gave the three of us last Sunday – funny, warm, and really overwhelming. What if happiness becomes an addiction? Meet you at the church, [in holograph] on time!” At the bottom of the letter he lists his and Evie’s addresses and telephone numbers.

TLS. (“Dick”). 2/3p. 4to. New York, June 14, 1990. To Pat and Elizabth Moynihan. “My mentor, Alexey Brodovitch, published a magazine on graphics in the 1950’s. It was very beautiful and lasted exactly 3 issues before it went bust. I remember it as having a beautiful portfolio on Shaker Art and here it is... PS. I found the enclosed Republican Congress Committee cards in the gutter (where they might well belong) on 76th Street and 3rd Ave. I’m sending them to you both as A JOKE.”

TLS. (“Friend Dick”). ½p. 4to. New York, November 7, 1990. To Pat Moynihan. “This is a photograph of Jack Yeats done in 1946 by Bill Brandt. It was up for auction in London last week. I took the high side of the estimate, added 10%, and to my horror, was outbid. So the best I can do is photostat it from the catalog. I can’t imagine what the photograph or painting on the wall behind him is. It seems to be a girl in a coffin, but who and why? This is not a birthday present, not a Christmas present, just a way of saying hello and send you my, and Bill Brandt’s best.”

TLS. (“Ever Dick”). ½p. 4to. New York, January 28, 1991. To Elizabeth Moynihan “In the future, please tear up all pictures of me and Pat where we have quadruple chins. It is too cruel what happens at our age. The rest are masterpieces...I miss you both and can imagine what Pat’s feeling at this time in his life to see so much that he’s worked for falling apart.”

TLS. (“XXXOOO Dick”) 1p. 4to. New York, September 11, 1991. “The peppermill and the pepper came and have been used all over some pasta. It’s called Pepper Pasta and I’ve just invented it because of you. And like you – it works, it’s delicious!”

TLS. (“Love, Dick”). 1p. 4to. New York, July 14, 1992. To Elizabeth Moynihan. “It was our second wonderful 4th of July, and in the words of Henry Adams: ‘Senators can never be approached with safety, but a Senator who has a very superior wife and several superior children who feel no deference for Senators as such, may be approached at times with relative impunity while they keep him under restraint.’ And the same goes for an egomaniacal photographer...”

TLS. (“Dick”). ½p. 4to. New York, April 19, 1993. To Pat Moynihan. “The most appropriate part of your note on m’chutan was the four ‘no’s. They start my favorite passage from King Lear, but you must have known that. I’ve been working very hard, not exactly new, and have been quite cut off from ‘the family,’ but of course not really...” With the photocopy of Moynihan’s letter to Avedon from April 2, 1993, explaining, “No, no, no. We are m’chutan. The Biblical Hebrew word for ‘groom’ is ‘Chatan.’ Thus, the Hebrew word for a wedding is a ‘chatuna’ and the word for male in-laws is ‘m’chutan’ (literally, ‘from the groom’s side’) and the word for female in-laws is ‘m’chutenet.’ The latter phrase was corrupted in early Yiddish to ‘machetenistas’ for female in-laws and remained ‘m’chutan’ for male in-laws.” Avedon has written at the top of the sheet “Pat!” and below “WOW! Dick.”

TLS. (“Ever, unequivocally yours, Dick”). 2/3p. New York, June 2, 1993. To Pat and Elizabeth Moynihan. “How the hell you can run the finances of your home and the U.S. of A., and thrill me on my birthday as you did, is beyond anything. Just the thought of The Family becoming the family, and that Michael [his son, John, and Moynihan’s daughter Maura’s child] is in the world. Makes for a very sanguine geezer.”

TLS. (“Dick”). ½p. 4to. New York, August 9, 1993. To Pat Moynihan. “I can’t thank you enough for helping with David Ross at the Whitney, or for the pleasure of reading your Julliard commencement speech. That, and putting me on the Catholic track for The New Yorker essay, and many other things, leave me unequivocally yours.”

TLS. (“Ever Dick”). 2/3p. 4to. New York, June 7, 1994. To Pat Moynihan. “What a perfect letter – to a guy who becomes more and more famous and gets worse and worse reviews, in America, that is; where fame seems to be a necessity to a career, and food to the intellectually famished. Critics...”

ALS. (“Dick”). 1p. 4to. New York, N.d. to Pat and Elizabeth Moynihan. “Oh, happy day!”

With two autograph correspondence card and Avedon’s brief note on a photocopy of a TLS from Moynihan to Avedon as noted above.

Avedon is best known for his numerous portraits of celebrities, models and political figures photographed during a career that spanned more than half a century. Nearly all his portraits were shot in a studio with the sitter in front of a blank white background. His subject would be free to move around the space as they saw fit while Avedon asked questions, often deeply personal, that evoked a pronounced reaction from the sitter. In this way he was able to capture genuine and unique images from such practiced subjects such as the Beatles, Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn.

In 1976, Avedon created a portfolio entitled The Family, mentioned in one of our letters, and which included a famous image of his good friend “Pat” Moynihan, published in the October issue of Rolling Stone. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2002 retrospective of Avedon’s work also included this portrait as did Avedon’s book Portraits of Power. Maura Moynihan chose it as the cover of an anthology of her father’s letters entitled, Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary.

Moynihan served in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations as assistant secretary of labor until 1965. Following a failed bid for election to the New York City Council, he became director of the Harvard–MIT Joint Center for Urban Studies. Despite being a Democrat, President Nixon chose Moynihan as his counselor on urban affairs, and in 1973 he was appointed U.S. ambassador to India, the world’s largest democracy to smooth over the two countries’ sometimes fractious relationship. Moynihan served as President Ford’s ambassador to the United Nations where he was, among other things, an outspoken supporter of Israel. After leaving the Ford administration, Moynihan decided to run for the Senate and announced his candidacy in June 1976. His victory led to a career as New York’s Senator, which lasted from 1977 to 2001.

Avedon’s January 1991 letter mentioning “what Pat’s feeling at this time in his life to see so much that he’s worked for falling apart,” was written during the tense days of the second phase of the Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm, a matter on which Moynihan advised President George H.W. Bush despite voting against Congressional authorization for the Gulf War. Later in 1991, Moynihan’s opposition to the 1975 UN Resolution 3379 which “Determines that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination” would come up again in public discourse when the UN revoked the resolution in December.

Maura Moynihan is a novelist and activist for Tibetan refugees. After co-hosting the show “Andy Warhol’s TV” with Warhol for five years, she traveled to India and Nepal where she launched a multi-lingual radio show in Kathmandu, Nepal called “Radio Free.” In 1990, she married John F. Avedon and together they had a son, Michael Avedon (b. 1990), currently a photographer.

In our letters, Avedon refers to Russian-American photographer and art director of Harper’s Bazaar Alexey Brodovitch (1898-1971) as his mentor and mentions the innovative and influential graphics publication Portfolio. Also mentioned is important British photographer and photojournalist Bill Brandt (1904-1983) who, during his acclaimed career, was a contributor to Harper’s Bazaar. In 1946, he photographed Jack Butler Yeats (1871-1957), Irish artist and brother of poet W.B. Yeats.

Our letters also quotes from The Education of Henry Adams by historian, author and grandson of John Quincy Adams, Henry B. Adams (1838-1918), and mentions Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear.

It was under the Whitney Museum’s new director David A. Ross that Avedon’s 1994 show received bad reviews, alluded to in his letter to Moynihan.

In 1991, Julliard awarded Moynihan an honorary doctorate (along with Robin Williams, Issac Stern and several others) and Moynihan delivered the commencement address in which he stated, “The answer to the danger of political interference, then, is not to deny that it exists, but rather to be prepared to resist it,” (“Commencements; For Julliard, Ex-Student Hams It Up,” The New York Times, May 18, 1991).

Not published in Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary. In very fine to excellent condition.