Marian Anderson, Singer, in the Role of Ulrica in “An Ballo in Maxhera”, New York City, June 30, 1955

This portrait depicts the famous singer Marian Anderson performing an opera by Giuseppe Verdi, a role she had already played a few months earlier at the Metropolitan Opera, becoming the first Black American soloist to perform on this prestigious stage. In this image, Anderson's mouth forms such an expressive oval that one can almost hear her voice, like a visual onomatopoeia. The white, minimalist studio background focuses attention on her, highlighting the contours of her head and strands of her hair. Avedon crops his subject so that she appears to burst out of the frame, a choice he explains as his desire to “emphasize Anderson's power and vitality.” 

This portrait was first published in the November 1955 issue of Harper's Bazaar, then at the height of its success, and is part of a broader reflection on the representation of Black people in media imagery, an issue that Avedon would explore more and more explicitly in the future.

This work is held by the Pinault Collection and was first shown at the "Corps et âmes" at the Bourse de Commerce in 2025