Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Andy Warhol and Members of the Factory, New York City, October 30, 1969
Richard Avedon American
Not on view
In 1969 the fashion and portrait photographer Richard Avedon challenged himself to slow down his picture-making process by using a less portable piece of studio photography equipment: an 8 x 10–inch format camera with a heavy tripod. This three-part panoramic portrait of the artist Andy Warhol and his unconventional entourage was among the first Avedon made with this studio camera for non-fashion work. With its unabashed nudity and gender fluidity, the photograph stands as a provocative marker of the American cultural and sexual revolution in the 1960s. In the center, Avedon recasts the Three Graces as nude young men; on either side are other members of the Factory (as Warhol’s studio was known), including the transgender actor Candy Darling (left) and Warhol himself (far right).
