Richard Avedon

Ann Wexler, Associate Publisher of Rolling Stone

By descent to the present owner

'The Family,' Rolling Stone, no. 224, 21 October 1976

About Face (San Francisco: Pier 24 Photography, 2014), pp. 160-63

Avedon Warhol (London: Gagosian, 2016), pl. 52

'Early this year we asked Richard Avedon—one of the world's greatest photographers—to cover America's bicentennial presidential election. Our original idea was to publish a chronicle of the campaign—the candidates and the conventions—from beginning to end. Shortly after accepting our commission, Mr. Avedon called to say that there was more to the election than met the eye; that the real story was not simply the candidates, but a broad group of men and women—some of whom we had never heard of before—who constitute the political leadership of America. Thus began a special issue of Rolling Stone, a collection of 73 portraits...Aside from the accompanying Who's Who biographies, there is no text; we think the portraits speak for themselves.' (Rolling Stone, 21 October, 1976, no. 224, p. 5)

The unique assemblage of photographs offered here comes originally from the collection of Ann Wexler, an Associate Publisher for Rolling Stone beginning in 1973. The working maquette, comprised of 31 prints of which most are mounted to card, offers insight into Avedon’s process and was used directly in the sequencing of the images for the magazine. These working prints are of two different sizes and pair larger images with groups of four smaller portraits.

Only two other maquettes for The Family have appeared at auction. Subsequent to the Rolling Stone feature, Avedon published a portfolio of the complete series of images in an edition of 25. The portfolio is in various institutional and private collections including: the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm; The National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D. C.; and the Hasselblad Center Collection, Göteborg, Sweden.