Richard Avedon 1923-2004

a diptych, comprising 2 mural-sized photographs, each mounted to aluminum, signed, dated, annotated respectively 'A' and 'B,' and the second inscribed 'for Ruedi' by the photographer in ink and with the In the American West series title, title, date, photographer's credit, and copyright etched on the reverse, 1981 and 1983, printed in 1985 (2)

Gift of the photographer to the present owner, 1985

Other prints of these images:

Richard Avedon, In the American West (New York, 2005), unpaginated

According to the Richard Avedon Foundation only four Richard Wheatcroft diptychs were produced.  Two of the diptychs are in institutional collections: at the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, and at The Center for Creative Photography, Tucson.  One is held by the Avedon Foundation in New York; and the fourth, offered here, comes from the collection of Ruedi Hofmann.

The photographer Ruedi Hofmann was Richard Avedon's assistant and studio manager from 1981 to 1986.  Hofmann was the master printer for the In the American West book, as well as for the mural-sized prints in the original 1984 exhibition held at the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth.  He worked for a number of years printing the photographs for the exhibition, creating over 100 large-format prints which are now part of the museum's permanent collection. 

Richard Avedon met Richard Wheatcroft in a bar in Miles City, Montana, while working on his long-term series In the American West.  Wheatcroft, only twenty-four at the time of the first sitting, had inherited his family's cattle ranch after his father's tragic death in 1978, and was already an experienced rancher.  During the production of In the American West, Avedon developed a lasting relationship with Wheatcroft, and photographed him four times in a six-year period.