political portraiture

after the sad passing of ted kennedy last night, i started thinking about the kennedy family and their photographic history(particularly this image). i would say that the kennedys were the first "first family" that the public was fascinated by. today, we don't think of this as uncommon. we have read the articles covering the obama's vacation plans; including mr. president's beach reads and culinary choices on the island. we even know the name of the obama family dog and that mrs. obama prefers j.crew to expensive designers. at the beginning of president obama's presidency, several pictures were released to satisfy public curiosity about the family. this mimics what occurred in 1961, when jackie, caroline and john kennedy jr. sat for richard avedon. the pictures that developed were the beginning of the documentation of the kennedy family, so many of the images, that even i, having been born 23 years after JFK's assasination, can recall. so, forgive my rambling, but my real point is to call attention to the political portraiture of richard avedon. currently, there is a show at the international center for photography highlighting his fashion photography, however, i find his haunting images of presidents, past and present, slightly more interesting.