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Richard Avedon: Portraits
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Marian Anderson, contralto, New York City, June 30, 1955
Richard Avedon (American, b. 1923)
Gelatin silver print; 97.5 x 109.2 cm (38 3/8 x 43 in.)
Collection of the artist
© Richard Avedon
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Here is the great contralto singer Marian Anderson. Maria Morris Hambourg, curator of this exhibition, tells us about this remarkable image:
By waiting . . . for a moment when Anderson closed her eyes, Avedon was able to suggest her intense inner concentration on the song and to allow us, the viewer, to focus on her mouth.
So that even if we didn't know anything about Marian Anderson, we could see in this grace and strength and total commitment to her voice, that she was the very embodiment of song.
And if in fact we did know what is historically true, which is that Anderson fought in a very quiet and effective way to be heard, despite the objections raised by the Daughters of the American Revolution because of her race, we would also be able to detect a kind of moral probity and strength in this portrait as well.
In the 1930s, the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to let Anderson perform on the basis of her race. Outraged, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the organization and arranged for the concert to take place at Washington's Lincoln Memorial instead.
There, before an audience of 75,000 people, Anderson began the concert with this song:
My country 'tis of thee
Sweet land of liberty
of thee we sing.
Land where my fathers died
Land of the pilgrims' pride
From every mountain side
Let freedom ring.
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