Richard Avedon established his name in the world of fashion photography early on, using experimental compositions to create dramatic and visually arresting images. In this starkly-contrasted portrait of Abstract Expressionist painter Willem de Kooning, Avedon shies away from the overt theatrics of his earlier magazine photographs. Instead, he conveys a subtle tension between vitality and mortality, focusing less on the artist’s clothing and more on the intensity of his gaze and the age of his body.