Brett Weston - Oregon
Brett Weston - Oregon
Volume 9 in the Portfolios of Brett Weston
Introduction by Bernard Freemesser
Afterword by Roger Aikin
Softbound Edition of 1000 Copies
Printed by SALTO in 600 Line Screen Quadtone
15 reproductions, 44 pages
12 1/2 x 12 1/2
In 1975 Brett Weston was sixty-four years old and had been making photographs for fifty years. He had married and divorced for the fourth and last time, his daughter Erica was grown, and he had achieved international recognition and considerable financial security.
Oregon photographers are well aware of the great diversity and visual possibilities in their native landscape. Weston fell in love with Oregon in the late 1960s and made several close friends there, especially Gerald Robinson, who wrote the introduction for Weston's Europe portfolio of 1973 and to whom this portfolio is dedicated, and Bernard Freemesser, who wrote the introduction for his Oregon portfolio.
The Oregon portfolio exemplifies Brett Weston's unique vision at the height of his powers. His subjects are familiar water, ice, metal, rocks, sand, and trees but their treatment is mysterious, unexpected, free, and joyful.
THE PORTFOLIOS OF BRETT WESTON
A NINETEEN-VOLUME SERIES
Between 1939 and 1980 Brett Weston produced eighteen limited edition portfolios of original photographs. He believed passionately in the power of his original prints and chose the portfolio as the way to reach an expanded audience while still maintaining control over image quality. Today, Weston's original portfolios are rare, expensive, and relatively inaccessible in museums, archives, libraries, or private collections. Many of the photographs in these new books have never before been reproduced. Published in a hardbound edition limited to 250 numbered copies. The softbound edition is limited to 1000 copies, and books are available individually or by subscription.
Printing technology now makes it possible, however, to bring the Brett Weston portfolios to a larger audience in reproductions that, in their rich detail, tonal scale and color, surface quality, and aesthetic appeal, are almost indistinguishable from the original prints. Printed in Belgium by Salto in 600-line screen quadtone on heavy coated stock, the photographs have been reproduced actual size whenever possible.
To recreate the feeling of the original portfolios, great care has been taken not only with the reproduction of the photographs, but with every aspect of these books. Where there is text in the portfolios, it is reproduced in facsimile, and the color of each book's cover has been selected to match the covers of the original portfolio cases.
The art historian Roger Aikin, a close friend of Brett's, has provided an introductory essay for each book in the series, writing that sets the photographs in the context of Weston's life and career. Dr. Aikin's critical analysis comparing the photographs of Brett and those of his father, published in 1973, remains the finest analysis of its type we have ever seen.