I had a fight with a friend this summer over lunch at a sidewalk cafe.  A young woman walked by and my friend stared and remarked, “She’s beautiful."  I protested, too much.  Not because the woman wasn’t great-looking or because I was jealous, but because the word – beautiful – is one that shouldn’t be thrown around like that, and not at a passerby on Ninth Avenue.  I’d like to believe that beauty is complicated and takes time to reveal itself.  It’s simply too important; it’s something much more.

Then I saw these glossy, full-size prints of Richard Avedon’s 1967 portraits of the Beatles in the cramped back room of an Upper East Side Gallery.  I’d seen the images before, in books, but the prints are astounding.  They’re composed very simply and capture great detail.  The four men are young, guileless, and, yes, beautiful, in a way that has everything to do with what they look like but also goes deeper than that.  There’s something of their spirit in the pictures.  Not everyone who’s photographed by Avedon looks good.  So many of his portraits, particularly those of political figures, are pointed and satirical.  And so many of his portraits, particularly those of celebrities, are undermined by their formal perfection.  (That might be exactly what makes him a magnificent fashion photographer.)  These portraits of John, Paul, George and Ringo owe something to the skill of the photographer, and also the character of the men.