Book battle brews
THE head of the customarily reserved Richard Avedon Foundation has blasted a new book on the photographer by Avedon’s former business partner Norma Stevens. Revelations in “Avedon: Something Personal” include that Avedon and his best friend Mike Nichols carried on a decadelong affair. ANewYork Times review on Tuesday called the tome “a good time” with “gobbets of gossip tucked into every scene.” But Avedon Foundation head James Martin, a former colleague of Stevens, claimed on Wednesday, “The book was not factchecked” and “the list of errors is far too long to recount, but it causes the book to collapse under the weight of its own sloppiness.” Martin writes on the foundation’s Web site that Stevens was not with Avedon at the time of his death in 2004, as he says the book claims. “No she wasn’t,” snaps Martin. “How do I know? Because on the day that Avedon died in San Antonio, Ms. Stevens was with me and the rest of Avedon’s employees at his studio in New York City. She broke the news to us. Avedon’s death was attended solely by members of his immediate family.” Martin further claims, “Stevens tries to convince us that Avedon trusted her alone with his deepest secrets [which is untrue], and directed her to ‘out’ him at her own convenience.” He doesn’t specifically address the alleged Nichols affair. Disputing another anecdote about Avedon’s purchase of an East 75th Street carriage house, allegedly unbeknownst to his wife at the time, Martin writes, “[T]he story isn’t true ... Stevens’ timeline and her conception of herself are all wrong, as they are throughout the book,” which was penned with Steven M.L. Aronson. A rep for publisher Spiegel & Grau did not get back to us.