Avedon, Richard: Nothing Personal (paperback)

1965

Dell Publishing

A reduced-size paperback edition of this pairing of pictures by Avedon with text by Baldwin published in 1964.

A few years ahead of its time, this collection of Avedon photographs seems to trace the fracturing of American culture, beginning with his portraits of royalty and American blue bloods before progressing into the Counter Culture. The images are often ironic or provocative or jarring, as when a nude picture of Allen Ginsberg is placed opposite an image of neo-Nazi's saluting George Lincoln Rockwell. The last picture is a mixed-race group image of SNCC organizers, perhaps a statement of hope for the future.

Baldwin's text is a grim first-person essay offering little hope for American society, "The America of my experience has worshipped and nourished violence for as long as I have been on earth." Undoubtedly it was a deliberate choice of Baldwin and Avedon to make no specific reference to Vietnam.