Brett Weston

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Brett Weston (actually: Theodore Brett Weston ; born December 16, 1911 in Los Angeles , California , † January 22, 1993 in Hawaii ) was an American photographer and the second son of the photographer Edward Weston and brother of the photographer Cole Weston . His most famous works were created near the dunes around Oceano, California, a passion he shared with his father Edward Weston.

Life

Brett Weston, born in Los Angeles in 1911 , was the 2nd son of the famous photographer Edward Weston . At the age of 14, his father picked him up from school and moved him to his photo studio in Mexico . So he became the father's assistant at an early age and learned the photography trade from scratch. Through his father he got to know famous painters like Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco and photographers like Tina Modotti . These artists had a formative influence on his later career. At an early age he surpassed his father in passion and originality and the curator of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art , Van Deren Coke , called the "child" literally by name: "Brett Weston is a youthful genius of American photographic art."

Weston returned to California in 1926 and assisted his father at his Glendale portrait studio, where he was already selling his own photographs. He exhibited his first pictures at UCLA in 1927 . In the same year he got his first photo exhibition at Jake Zeitlin's Bookstore and Gallery in Los Angeles .

At the age of 18 Weston was already receiving the full attention of the international critical trade press after his work in film and photo exhibitions in Stuttgart, by famous photographers such as Man Ray , Berenice Abbott , Paul Outerbridge (1896-1958), and his own father and appraised and were assessed.

Weston worked as a photographer for the Works Progress Administration from 1936 and later as a cameraman for the 20th Century Fox film company in the war film department before he stopped there again in 1941.

In 1939 his portfolio pictures of San Francisco had already been published. During military service, he met the photographer Arthur Rothstein on Long Iceland know.

After the war and his discharge from the US Army , Weston was awarded a Guggenheim scholarship . At the time, the east coast of America became his preferred subject. Brett Weston's first book was published in 1956.

From the 50s to the 70s, the style of his photographs was subject to sharp changes, right up to abstraction. He spent the late 70s and 80s mainly in Hawaii, where he confessed: "In this environment, there is everything that is worth reinterpreting photographically."

On January 22, 1993, Brett Weston died in his home in Hawaii at the age of 81.

Books

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biography of Brett Weston with Edward Weston ( Memento of the original from September 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.edward-weston.com
personal data
SURNAME Weston, Brett
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Weston, Theodore Brett
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American photographer
DATE OF BIRTH December 16, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Los Angeles , California
DATE OF DEATH January 22, 1993
Place of death Hawaii