Richard Avedon's In the American West is widely regarded as a landmark project in photographic history and a definitive expression of the power of photographic art. First published by Abrams in 1985 in conjunction with an exhibition at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, the book is being reissued to accompany a 20th-anniversary re-showing of the exhibition at the same museum.

Avedon, who died in 2004, was the greatest American photographer of his generation. For In the American West, he traveled throughout five years, meeting and photographing the plain people of the West: ranch workers, roustabouts, bar girls, drifters, and gamblers. The resulting book includes 120 exquisitely printed black-and-white photographs, an essay by Avedon on his working methods and portrait philosophy, a journal of the project by Laura Wilson, and a new foreword by John Rohrbach. The reissuing of this legendary book, out of print for more than a decade, is a major event in the photography world.

John Rohrbach (senior curator of photography, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth Texas) provides a preface to this 20th anniversary reprint of a work first published in 1985. This oversize volume (11.5x14<">) represents an extraordinary project initiated by the Museum to engage the famous photographer in a study of people of the West. Avedon enthusiastically undertook the project and between 1979 and 1984 photographed 752 people in 189 cities and towns. The exhibition consisted of giant b&w photos (up to four feet high, up to 11 feet in length). Presented here full page, each photo shows the subject looking directly at the camera in front of a white background—no distortion, no props, no fancy lighting; these are everyday, working people, distinctly and unapologetically individual, and the show was controversial for its utterly forthright representations. A concluding essay recounts some background on the individuals and the photo-shoots.
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First published by Abrams in 1985 in conjunction with an exhibition at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, "In the American West" is being reissued to accompany a 20th-anniversary re-showing of the exhibition at the same museum.

Richard Avedon was one of the most influential photographers of the second half of the 20th century, and his portrait work comprises an authoritative record of our era. As a staff photographer for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue, Avedon redefined fashion photography. In 1992 he was named the first staff photographer in the history of The New Yorker.Laura Wilson is a photographer whose previous books are Hutterites of Montana, Watt Matthews of Lambshead, and Avedon at Work. She lives in Dallas. John Rohrbach is senior photography curator at the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth.