William Casby, born in slavery, Algiers, Louisiana, March 24, 1963

In the early 1960s, photographer Richard Avedon and writer James Baldwin joined forces to explore American identity in a society marked by racism and segregation. They published Nothing Personal, a visual mosaic of the American people, combining portraits of celebrities, political figures, and anonymous individuals, accompanied by Baldwin's critical commentary.

Malcolm X, a central figure in the Civil Rights Movement, appears alongside William Casby, a centenarian born into slavery. Malcolm X's portrait is deliberately blurred, his smile barely sketched, reflecting the leader's shifting thoughts and radicalism. In contrast, Casby's portrait, with its extreme precision, reveals wrinkles, pores, and scars, as if to accentuate his physical presence, a reminder that slavery and its repercussions were not so distant in the 1960s. 

These works are held by the Pinault Collection and were presented for the first time at the "Corps et âmes" exhibition at the Bourse de Commerce in August 2025.