Photography Collection

Although Brett Weston was considered a key player in the photography world during his lifetime, his achievements have been overshadowed by those of his renowned father, Edward. In the first major exhibition in 30 years to be exclusively dedicated to Brett’s prolific body of work, Brett Weston: Out of the Shadow concentrates on the photographer’s distinct creative spirit. On view from June 21 through Sept. 7, 2008, the exhibition features more than 100 photographs from the 1920s through the 1980s. It is the first retrospective of the artist’s work ever to be presented in Washington, D.C. Out of the Shadow focuses attention on Brett’s abstract black-and-white photographs of landscapes, shapes and textures, and architectural elements. A pioneer in his field, Brett captured the intricacies and rhythms of form, light, and shadow while avoiding photographic techniques such as contrived lighting, staging, or other manipulation. “The Brett Weston exhibition is a natural extension of our interest in and support of 20th-century photography,” said Dorothy Kosinski, director of The Phillips Collection. “The museum has presented two Edward Weston exhibitions, and we are eager to bring Brett’s work to wider public attention.”
Aside from two series taken in San Francisco in the 1930s and New York in the 1940s, and abstract images of painted walls, broken glass, and cars, Brett focused on aspects of the natural world, in both close-ups and big views. Although all of his photographs seem to have been taken outdoors, Brett did not consider himself a nature photographer. Many of his most beautiful and accomplished images are associated with water—ice, clouds, ocean, underwater nudes, wet kelp, wet stones, puddles, beads of moisture, bubbles. His sensual black-and-white images transformed quiet moments into powerful statements of bold abstractions. From the rocks of Pebble Beach (1980) that shimmer as if made from mercury, to the sand and horizon in White Sands New Mexico (1945) that appear so stark they seem joined as one, Brett built his oeuvre by pushing the limits of vivid black-and-white contrasts.
Born in Los Angeles, Brett left California at the age of 13 to live with his father Edward in Mexico, taking his first picture on the boat ride south. In Mexico Brett learned form and composition from his father while using his portrait camera. Edward commented in his daybook, “He is doing better work at 14 then I did at 30. To have someone close to me, working so excellently, with an assured future, is happiness hardly expected.” Brett received international recognition for his work at age 18, when 20 of his photographs appeared in the exhibition Film und Foto (1929), along with work by Edward Steichen, Berenice Abbott, Man Ray, and others. In
1947, Brett was awarded a Guggenheim grant to photograph East Coast landscapes. A year later, Brett returned to California to help care for Edward as his health declined and to print his father’s photographs, exercising the ultimate influence on Edward’s art. In the following decades, Brett continued to create images of landscape and nature, making several trips to photograph locations in Europe, Japan, and Central America. In the late 1970s, Brett built a house in Hawaii, where he worked and lived for most of the rest of his life. He guaranteed that he would be the only person to ever print his work by destroying all but a few negatives, which are permanently damaged. Brett died in 1993 in Kona, Hawaii.

A book with over 100 tritone illustrations accompanies the exhibition. Brett Weston: Out of the Shadow, edited by Stephen Bennett Phillips, features essays by Phillips, Brett Weston Archive Director Scott Hale, and Phillips Editor in Chief Johanna Halford-MacLeod. Published by the Oklahoma City Museum of Art and The Phillips Collection, it will be available in the Museum Shop.

Brett Weston: Out of the Shadow
The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.

The collection is located in the heart of Washington’s historic Dupont Circle neighborhood, at 1600 21st Street, NW, near the Dupont Circle Metro (Q Street exit). Museum hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday Artful Evenings until 8:30 p.m.; Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Mondays and New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day.