Portrait of a family: Peabody Essex Museum displays images of the Kennedys

Seventeen days before his inauguration, President-elect John F. Kennedy and his family sat for fashion photographer Richard Avedon whose memorable portraits shaped public perception of them in ways that still endure.

Instead of capturing Camelot in the making, many of Avedon’s previously unseen images show the soon-to-be First Family looking more like regular folks than the larger-than-life figures whose photos would appear in Harper’s Bazaar and Look magazines.

Posed next to his wife, JFK sometimes seemed stiff and distracted. Months after giving birth, Jacqueline looked fragile and fatigued.

Anyone who lived through those years can’t look at these photos of Caroline and baby John and not think of sadder images to come that would sear the nation’s memory.

“Looking at this incredibly dynamic family,” observed chief curator Lynda Hartigan, “we think ‘This is America.’ “

Nearly 50 years later, a revealing mix of Avedon’s photos from that session are on display at the Peabody Essex Museum in “The Kennedys/Portrait of a Family.”

Moving and informative, this exhibit tugs at our memories while documenting how darkroom craft and editorial choices mold public opinion.

PEM curator of photography Phillip Prodger said the exhibit “tells the story of how one of America’s favorite, most influential photographers crossed paths with the Kennedys for one magical day in the winter of 1961.”

Shot in the Kennedy’s Palm Beach, Fla., home on Jan. 3, 1961, Avedon’s photos were the only formal pictures taken of Kennedy after his election and before the inauguration.

“It is rare to be able to see a group of pictures that helps us understand the way a photographer’s mind works the way this show does,” said Prodger. He said the show represents the first time a photography exhibit has been displayed in the museum’s special exhibitions gallery.

Making its only New England visit, the exhibit was created by the National Museum of American History and “organized for travel” by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. It will be in the museum in Salem through July 18.

Adapted for PEM by Prodger, it combines large reproductions of Avedon’s black-and-white photos as well as contact sheets that have never before been displayed.

The contact sheets contain 12 images that reveal the sequence of unused shots that went into a single published image. Like a flipbook, they show JFK and Jacqueline, more than the children, moving, sometimes uncomfortably, through a series of poses, smiles and other gestures.

Internationally famous as a fashion and portrait photographer, Avedon might have seemed like a curious choice to photograph the ascendant first couple.

Prodger suggested that Jacqueline Kennedy, whose interest in fashion and high culture helped create the Camelot mystique surrounding her husband’s administration, chose Avedon because “she was comfortable with him.”

In retrospect, that seemed like a prescient choice but not for reasons she might have considered.

Careful observers can see Avedon at work, selecting the images which best present the illusion of spontaneity which often seems lacking in these photos of, what Prodger called, “America’s first media-friendly power couple.”

In this session, Avedon worked with a Rollieflex camera that used 2 1/4-inch negatives that captured precise details and varying nuances of black and white.

“See the ones Avedon left behind. See the manipulation, cropping and re-sizing (of the photos),” said Prodger. “See the editing process and see what changes occur from the camera to the studio. All these alterations were done before Photoshop but they were still done.”

Standing by a photo of Jacqueline Kennedy, he pointed out how Avedon eliminated “a wisp of hair, falling onto her cheek” and a wrinkle in her gown to make the photos he wanted.

Referring to another photo, Prodger said Jacqueline Kennedy had become “a bit plump” from her recent pregnancy so in the darkroom Avedon “shaved a little off her hip.”

Avedon had other concerns when choosing which photos of JFK to publish.

“Jackie looks relatively relaxed. John looks absolutely stoic. In these photos, he’s stiff as a board,” said Prodger. “Put him in front of a camera and JFK froze up. But get him when he’s dropped his guard and his comfort dealing with people comes through.”

Of all of Avedon’s photos that day, his shots of young Caroline remain the most fresh and poignant, conveying the joyful energy later associated with the Kennedy mystique.

She tugs her father’s fingers and squirms in his embrace. She holds and caresses her sleeping baby brother John with an innocence that now seems painful in view of what came later.

In such magical photos, Avedon inadvertently captured the spirit of not just the Kennedy family but the nation that embraced and lost them.

FYI

Peabody Essex Museum is located in East India Square. Admission is $15 for adults, $13 for seniors and $11 for students; children 16 and younger and Salem residents. For more information and to take a virtual tour of the museum’s Yin Yu Tang house, visit pem.org or call 866-745-1876.

A book, “Richard Avedon. The Kennedys; A Family Portrait” accompanies the exhibit and is available in the PEM gift shop.