‘I don't consider myself to be a nepo baby at all’: Caroline Avedon on preserving her grandfather's legacy — and her consuming passions

Caroline Avedon is dressed like a glamorous New York cowboy at the exhibition she has curated at the Gagosian on Grosvenor Hill in London. She wears a black leather fringed jacket, snakeskin cowboy boots, gold jewellery and a curtain of dark pin-straight hair. A gold ‘C’ hangs from a chain around her neck, as if to remind her of who she is. One small blue hoop earring is the only thing I can spot on her person that isn’t meticulously curated to fit a sleek, mature aesthetic. Curating, after all, is a big part of Caroline’s job, as the curator and archivist at the Richard Avedon Foundation, which continues to showcase the work of her grandfather, the famous photographer.

Avedon is perhaps best known for his glamorous fashion shots for Harper's Bazaar, Elle and Vogue, but 'Facing West' (until March 14) is entirely different. The exhibition is a selection of original work from 'In the American West', a series of portraits of working-class individuals taken by Avedon in the 1980s; beautiful, devastating and intense snapshots of a real America. They were arranged by Caroline so that the darker images are viewed first. One of her favourites is an image of BJ Van Fleet, a shotgun toting nine-year-old who stares stubbornly down the lens. Caroline says it sums up the state of the USA today.

Avedon died when she was five, but Caroline still has ‘incredibly vivid’ memories of him. It wasn’t until he passed away, however, that she realised the enormity of his success. To her, ‘he was just Grandpa Dick’. Shortly after his death, she was watching TV when she saw his obituary on CCN and innocently asked her father: ‘Why is grandpa on the TV?’ Aged five, she didn’t even know what his legacy was — now, aged 26, her life is dedicated to preserving it.

As a child, she wanted to be a marine biologist, as she grew up beside the ocean in South Island, in the Hamptons. ‘That evolved and moved on as I grew up, but still not to anything artistic,’ she recounts, although she always had a love of dancing. ‘I wanted to be a lawyer. I’ve always been interested in politics and helping people and I am quite skilled at winning an argument,’ she says. Caroline is headstrong; a necessary trait to deter potential nepo baby allegations. After all, it can’t be easy to have the same surname as the company that pays your bills (her mother is the CEO of the foundation, and her brother, Richard, also works there). After being put off by the idea of ‘being a woman in Washington DC at that time,’ Caroline abandoned her dreams of politics and law and worked in fashion for a spell (which she didn’t like) before asking her mother for a bit of temporary work. Four and a half years later, she ‘couldn’t imagine doing anything else’.

Caroline admits she was cautious at the start. ‘I was a little concerned that, especially for the two non-family members [that work for the foundation], that I might be perceived as, kind of…’ she trails off. ‘I don't know much about art. I didn't know much about art at the time. I didn't study art, and I wasn't exactly qualified. I taught myself a lot, and I read and took courses, but yeah, there's always the looming nepo baby thing — especially in America. People like to talk about that. I don't consider myself that at all, especially because it's a very niche environment.’

She explains: ‘I always try to have the hardest work ethic I can have at the foundation [...] reminding myself, and other people, that this is something I’m very passionate about, not just a “bailout”.’ I believe her. After all, her dad, beside being on the board, doesn’t have much to do with the foundation. Currently ‘he’s a writer for the Dalai Lama,’ Caroline tells me, casually, without much detail. For her, family is everything. ‘I think one of the coolest things I realised right off the bat [at the foundation] is that I had everything I could ever want to know about my family at my fingertips. Every family photo, every correspondence, every voice recording. I have learned so much about my history, my grandparents’ history, my great-grandparents, my dad, over the years and I wouldn't trade that for the world.’ For many years, Caroline couldn’t listen to an audio or video recording of Avedon. ‘It would stop my heart. I would just start to cry and slam the computer. It was an incredible jerk reaction,’ she says. ‘I just couldn't do it. It made me incredibly emotional. But now I think I've healed that part of myself by working at the foundation, because I don't remember him as ‘my dead grandpa’, now I remember him as this incredible, accomplished person.’

She describes him as ‘incredibly energetic, charismatic, vivacious and outgoing,’ without ‘an ounce of fear’. ‘He would walk into a room and light it up, for better or for worse — that is how I would describe him.’ In terms of likenesses, she thinks they share the same stubbornness as well as social temperament: ‘I'm an extroverted introvert, I would say, and I think there was a little bit of that in him as well. I think he was a smidge more outgoing than me.’ The job has changed how she sees the world, and herself. ‘It's kind of shifted my focus when I see people on the street,’ she explains. ‘For instance, instead of looking passively, I noticed little features about people that I definitely did not do before this job. I am always looking for something interesting about someone: what makes them unique, what's different about them.’ When it comes to having her own photo taken, things have changed too. ‘Loved it as a child,’ she says. ‘I don’t mind it now, but with social media and things, I’m much more critical of my appearance, which is sad [...] I think the older I'm getting, unfortunately, the more aware I am of my appearance and how I want to look, and so it's a double edged sword. I like the attention sometimes, and I also hate it sometimes because of how I'm feeling that day. I think, honestly, that's just the experience of being a woman.’

Caroline shows me around the exhibition, lovingly pointing out specific details of each portrait that tell a bit of the subject's story, and speaking as if she has known them all her life. The things Caroline admires so much about her grandfather’s art: the way he captured someone's clumsily applied makeup, the dirt flecked across their cheeks, a rip in their clothing or their uneven skin tone — essentially the things that make them look unique — are the imperfections she cannot abide in a photograph of herself. It’s a strange irony, I think. It’s a shame Richard isn’t around to take her photograph today. Through his lens, I am sure she’d be able to see things differently.

Your favourite painting

It's so tricky. This is a really hard question, and I don't know if I can hone in on one per se. I love romanticism in general. I love Monet a lot, but I don't think I could pick one, and I know that's kind of a bad answer, but I tend to gravitate towards landscape images, oceans in particular.

The last thing of note that you bought for yourself

I have a bit of a shopping problem. I am a very large Manolo Blahnik collector, and my most recent pair of Manolos that I bought myself for Christmas are probably my last purchase. My birthday is next week, so we'll see what I come up with for that. I buy a lot of shoes.

Your aesthetic hero

Of course I love my grandfather, but I would say Lauren Hutton has been an obsession of mine. I really love her, and her aesthetic. Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen — love them — and Zoë Kravitz, she’s incredibly unique.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

This is a hard question. I go to see a lot of art. I love art and photography, but I will selfishly say Avedon 100 was an incredible accomplishment. That was the first big project I worked on at the foundation. It was such a journey and humongous, and it was incredibly rewarding. So I would say that, as it was just so unique, and nothing, I think, has been done like it. To have been a part of that, I am so grateful.

A book you found inspiring

This is a weird answer. I don’t know if inspiring is the right word to describe it, but my favourite book of all time is The Great Gatsby. I’ve read that book, I think, about 13 times, and I travel with it. I love how beautifully heartbreaking it is. ​I think it is such a sad story, but a good sad story — if that makes any sense? I love his writing in particular. I've read a few of his books. I just think it's something I can never put down, and I think that's the best feeling in a book. The whole romanticism and utopian energy of Jay Gatsby and how it all comes crashing down I think is an incredible life lesson also, and I took a lot from it in my own life: that you can be so at the top of everything and feel like you're getting the world, and the next day it all goes away. I also find that Daisy Buchanan is one of the biggest villains of all time in fiction. She just grinds my gears in a good way. I have my grandpa’s copy of it with his notes in. It’s really cool, but they’re kind of hard to understand. I'm pretty sure, in the front cover, it says Heathrow and the time of a flight he took.

A possession you would never sell

My watch was grandpa's. He was a tiny man, hence why it fits my wrist. I would never even think about selling it. I honestly would never sell anything that was my grandfather's or my grandmother's.

The music that you work to

Mainly rap — it was probably the first music I was introduced to by my brothers. A lot of classic rock too. I love The Beatles, I love The Rolling Stones, I love The Grateful Dead and Rage Against the Machine, then I love jazz music, too. I'm a huge fan of Leo Armstrong, and house music. I will listen to almost anything. The one thing I don't like to listen to, because I grew up with it as background noise every day in my life with my father, is classical music — other than The Nutcracker, I could listen to the soundtrack of that all day long.

The last podcast you listened to

I am not the biggest podcast person, but I adore Amy Poehler's podcast. She is one of my favourite people on this planet. Parks and Recreation is my favourite TV show of all time, and I just think she's a great interviewer and keeps it funny and light. And I love the people that she's had on. It's the one podcast I actually sit down and listen to, and watch.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

Emma Roberts. She is the one person that I ever get told that I look like physically. She actually lives for periods of time near me, and her sister I grew up with. I don’t know her, but she’s fantastic, and I think she would play me well. I'd be honoured to be played by her.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

This is a really dumb answer, but water. I am a water fiend. The idea of even surviving without water doesn’t work for me.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

A very obnoxious alarm. I have to do the really awful one [she imitates the sound of a military claxon]. It's funny, because I'm not a good sleeper. I don't sleep much, but I have a really hard time waking up. When that alarm goes off for the office in the morning, I'm like: ‘Noooo!’ I love my bed. My bed and I are best friends. But, on a weekend, I would say a true New York bacon, egg and cheese and a vanilla ice latte.

The items you collect

Shoes. I’m fascinated by them. I think they’re beautiful. I've gotten to a point where I'm a collector of them so much that I want the weird ones. I want the — I don't want to say ugly, because I think they're beautiful — but you know the really wacky ones? I have a bunch of pony hair and animal print shoes. Oh, and jackets and coats — vintage jackets and coats is another one. And, shout out to a British company, I am about to be 27 but I'm obsessed with Jellycats.

A hotel you could go back and back to

Round Hill hotel in Montego Bay, Jamaica. I will die there, I will be buried there, I will live there. That's a family story, actually. Grandpa was very best friends with John Pringle, who's British and who founded Round Hill in Montego Bay in 1952, if I'm not mistaken. My family's been going there since 1952 and my dad grew up there for weeks and months on end. He's been going his whole life and I went for the first time when I was about eight, fell in love with it, and now it's my favorite place in the world. I can't imagine going anywhere else.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever had

I've had some really great jerk chicken in Jamaica, that’s memorable for me. I really enjoy cooking and I make a mean chicken cutlet. There's so many memories associated with that type of food. My mom's Italian, so I've been eating Italian food my whole life. I perfected my recipe in college and made it for all my friends. It’s all my boyfriend will eat.

The best present you’ve ever received

I am fortunate enough to have received a lot of great gifts. The one that stands out the most to me is, after my grandpa passed away, we got a package in the mail and it was a blanket with a giant dog head on it that my grandpa had made for me, and it wasn't finished until after he passed. I love dogs and I’ve always loved dogs. It actually arrived about three weeks after he had passed away, which is beautiful and obviously gut wrenching at the same time. That's probably the best present I've ever received, just because of the sentimental value of it. It sits in my bedroom in my parents' house.

Richard Avedon: Facing West is at Gagosian on Grosvenor Hill in London until March 14.