The wonderful thing about Richard Avedon is that, even as he found spectacular success shooting exactingly directed images of models destined for fashion magazines, he loved shooting candids of women with big personalities. And some of those were models, too. More than 100 of these off-kilter photographs are on view in Women, a new exhibition at Gagosian Beverly Hills and the first solo show of his work in the L.A. area since 1976.

The exhibition opens with an extreme close-up of Cheryl Crane, daughter of actress Lana Turner, photographed shortly after her exoneration for the killing of her mother’s abusive boyfriend at the age of 14. That’s followed by a 1959 portrait of Brigitte Bardot, shown in an introspective light far from the sexy insouciance she’s associated with. Other subjects include Elizabeth Taylor, Ella Fitzgerald, Anjelica Huston, Lauren Hutton, Verushka, Comtesse Jacqueline de Ribes, and socialite and columnist Elsa Maxwell (1957), lying in bed with her pet skunk.

Avedon: Women, November 1 – December 21, 2013, Gagosian Beverly Hills, 456 North Camden Drive, Los Angeles. Images © The Richard Avedon Foundation