Brett Weston
Cactus, 1933
Vintage Silver Gelatin
9 1/2 x 5 1/4 in
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This rich, vintage silver print of one of Brett Weston's earliest masterpieces is signed and dated in pencil mount recto. Made when Brett was just 22-years-old, a year after his...
This rich, vintage silver print of one of Brett Weston's earliest masterpieces is signed and dated in pencil mount recto. Made when Brett was just 22-years-old, a year after his solo retrospective at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, this image bears all the hallmarks of a pared-down, potently austere Weston photograph. Brett's father, Edward, made similar compositions of palm trunks in Mexico a decade earlier, which likely impressed Brett as a teenager. This important print is accompanied by a sheet annotated by Bob Byers, a good friend and traveling companion of Brett’s, from whose collection this print originates. This print is also accompanied by a letter from Brett to Byers confirming that this is a vintage print, made soon after the negative was developed. Around 1990, Byers mounted on museum board many of Brett’s contact prints, all of which are vintage despite being mounted later.