Three Generations of Weston

The Creative Center For Photography presents "Three Generations Of Weston" featuring the works of Edward, Brett and Kim Weston. The scope of this exhibition will cover the nearly one hundred years of the Weston's influence on American photography, as no other family has put such an indelible stamp on this medium.

A showing of Edward Weston's images alone would be cause enough for celebration, as he has been called "The most influential American photographer of the 20th century". Beginning in the early 1910's in a Pictorialist style, Edward quickly made his mark with both his striking pictures and the insightful writing that would sometimes accompany them in the key photo magazines of the day. However, in the 1920's he would abandon this approach and immerse himself in the technique that would ensure his enduring fame: the sharp rendition of abstractions found within the format of natural or "real" imagery. Edward summed up this philosophy in the following words: "The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself."

This newer approach would manifest itself in spectacular fashion in his documentation of industrial scenes, nude figures, and perhaps most famously in his close-ups of natural objects and vegetables. In particular, his renditions of seashells and peppers likened these commonplace items to sculpture, and would set a standard unmatched by those who followed.
Edward Weston: "Pepper #30" Photo use courtesy of Kim Weston	It was this emphasis on realism that attracted contemporaries like Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Willard Van Dyke and Sonya Noskowiak, with whom he helped found the famed Group f/64 in 1932. A Guggenheim Fellowship grant followed in 1936, the first ever awarded to a photographer, which helped enable him to photograph the American West and Southwest for the next several years. Edward would continue to expand his massive body of work until 1948, when Parkinson's disease would unfortunately curtail his ability to work on the extraordinary level he had become accustomed to. The last decade of his life would be spent overseeing the assembling of portfolios of his best work, printed by his sons Brett and Cole. His passing in 1958 marked the end of a era in photography; however, by this time another era had already begun, spurred on by Brett.

It could almost be said that Brett Weston was born with a camera in his hand; it would certainly help explain the enormous talent he exhibited for the craft at a young age. Following his fourteenth birthday, Brett's father Edward relocated the both of them to his new photo studio in Mexico, where Brett apprenticed to his father and met prominent artists such as Diego Rivera. Undoubtedly influenced by the modernist approach of these new acquaintances, the younger Weston combined this with aspects of Edward's realism technique to forge a look that went beyond that of his father's. If anything, Brett's work went to newer extremes of composition and abstraction, leading his father to comment that Brett was doing better work at the age of fourteen than he had at thirty. According to Van Deren Coke, then the curator of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, "Brett Weston was the child genius of American photography".

Brett Weston: "Leaf, Hawaii"
Photo use courtesy of Kim Weston

Brett Weston © Fishback	Following a return to California in 1926, Brett held his first exhibitions in Los Angeles that same year, and afterward received worldwide attention when his work was displayed in Germany alongside images of photographic legends like Man Ray, Berenice Abbot, Paul Outerbridge, and his father Edward. The 1930's and 1940's saw the creation of new portfolios of San Francisco and New York, before Weston was drafted into the U.S. Army for WWII service.
After his discharge in 1946, Brett moved to Carmel, California, which served as his base for fine-art photography. During the next decade Brett would assist in the publication of his ailing father's portfolios, and published his own first book in 1956. At about this time, Brett's style evolved further into even more abstract, high-contrast imagery set within natural surroundings, a trend which would continue until the end of his life. In the late 1970s Brett relocated to Hawaii, which he said had "everything [he] could want to interpret about the world photographically", and which was where he died in 1993. His lifelong pursuit of the ideal image ensures a hallowed place for him in photographic history.

Today, Brett's nephew Kim continues to advance the Weston family legacy. An accomplished fine-art photographer in his own right, Kim learned his craft assisting his father Cole in the darkroom making prints from his grandfather Edward's negatives, and also worked as an assistant to his uncle Brett. This intensive education led him to a revealing conclusion: "After spending countless hours and producing thousands of images in both my fathers' and Brett's darkrooms, I needed to prove that the image was not the most important part of the process, that the process itself held the rewards that I was looking for."

Kim Weston: "Nude In Cactus"
Photo use courtesy of Kim Weston

Breaking away from his uncle's and grandfather's well established techniques, Kim instead chose to return to a Pictorial style in the studio-precisely the point where his grandfather Edward began. Heavily influenced by painters such as Degas, Bosch and others, Kim's work-largely incorporating the human form in unusual or surreal surroundings-transcends his predecessors' and establishes an identity in its own right. Thus, not only has the Weston family's photography come full circle, it has begun an entirely new circle that delves into unforeseen territory.

With nearly a century of influence over American photography, no family has had as major an impact on this art form than the Weston's. Freestyle is honored to host this landmark event in the Creative Center for Photography.

Address and Phone Number

The Gallery at the Creative Center for Photography
5124 W Sunset Boulevard
Hollywood, CA 90027-9897, USA
323.660.3460 x121