The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants in America, Richard Avedon would ultimately become one of the great figures in the world of photography. Now, four years after his death at the age of 81, a grand retrospective of Avedon's work is on show in Berlin.

The exhibition titled "Richard Avedon -- Photos 1946-2004 -- A Retrospective" has arrived via Paris and after its stay in Berlin's Martin-Gropius-Bau through Jan. 19, it will move on to Amsterdam.

The Avedon Foundation, which has its seat in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, has chosen more than 250 stunning portraits and fashion shots from among the photographer's half-a-million negatives for the Berlin presentation.

The exhibition spans 30 years of his work -- from the early 1940s in Rome and Sicily to the street scenes in Paris immediately after the World War II to his iconic photographs of the glamorous fashion world of the 1950s in Paris and his later more psychological portraits of the literati, artists and entertainers.

As late as the mid-1970s, very few art museums had categorized photography as an "artistic" medium at al, but then came a turning point and contemporary photographic art gained a foothold in museum collections.

"Today, photography is recognized as an art form," said Norma Stevens, the director of the Avedon Foundation at the Berlin show's opening.

Avedon became a celebrity in his own right, initially through his early success in fashion photography. He worked for international magazines such as Harper's Bazaar, Vogue and The New Yorker where he became the first staff photographer.

Besides New York, he was especially well known in Paris as well as in Berlin where he was considered an icon in his field.

"At his first photographic exhibition in Paris, 200,000 people flocked to see it," said Stevens, in an interview with DPA.

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