Untitled (Tree, Rock, Plant, Death Valley), 1965
Gelatin silver print, 8 x 10 in. Gift from the Christian Keesee Collection, 2015 Bruce Museum Collection
Throughout his nearly seventy-year career, photographer Brett Weston (1911-1993) was obsessed with abstracted micro-images of reality as well as of cities and landscapes captured by a long telephoto lens that diminished the depth of field, thus flattening the image.
From Nov. 5 through Feb. 12, 2017, the Bruce Museum presents an exhibition of twenty-three vintage 11×14 and 8×10-inch, black-and-white photographs by Brett Weston that were part of a 2015 gift to the museum from the Christian Keesee Collection. Keesee, who is a collector and philanthropist, acquired the vintage prints from the Brett Weston Estate in 1996, then created an archive to organize and catalog the works as well as increase public awareness of the artist.
The exhibition titled “Towards Abstraction, 1940-1985: Brett Weston Photographs from the Bruce Museum Collection” features images of architectural designs from major cities and natural elements from the desert to lush tropical landscapes.
“Whatever the subject, the images are crisp, flattened, black and white, and brilliantly composed, but not staged,” notes Susan Ball, Bruce Museum Deputy Director and curator of the exhibition.
Brett Weston gained international recognition at the age of seventeen, when he was included, with his father, Edward Weston, in an avant-garde exhibition at Film und Foto in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1929. Three years later, he had his first one-person museum retrospective in San Francisco and frequently exhibited in the 1930s with the California group of photographers known as Group f.64, named for the aperture setting.
The Bruce Museum is located at 1 Museum Dr. For information, call 203-869-0376 or visit brucemuseum.org.
