1ère édition tirée à 1 000 exemplaires.
Brett Weston a réalisé ces douze photographies au cours de plusieurs voyages en Europe, les trois photographies de 1960 avec un appareil photo 8 x 10, le reste au début des années 1970 avec un Rollei SL66, un appareil qui a facilité le développement naturel de Weston vers l’abstraction et deux dimensionnalité qui marquent ses travaux ultérieurs.
Weston a dédié ce portfolio à son grand ami et mécène, Merle Armitage (1893 – 1975), autodidacte et imprésario qui a cofondé la Los Angeles Grand Opera Association, a géré le Philharmonic Auditorium de Los Angeles dans les années 1930, et inventé le Hollywood Bowl. Plus important pour la photographie, Armitage a été président de l’American Institute of Graphic Arts et directeur artistique de Quick and Look Magazine ainsi qu’un concepteur de livres et auteur avec plus d’une centaine de livres à son actif. Bon nombre des livres qu’il a écrits ou conçus mettent en vedette les artistes, les compositeurs et les interprètes auxquels il était associé. Il publia les premiers livres importants sur Edward et Brett Weston et en fut le protecteur toute sa vie. Armitage était encore un flou d’énergie et beaucoup en demande comme un orateur bien dans sa fin des années soixante-dix.
Brett Weston made these twelve photographs during several trips to Europe, the three photographs from 1960 with an 8 x 10 view camera, the rest in the early 1970s with a Rollei SL66, a camera that facilitated Weston’s natural development towards the abstraction and two-dimensionality that mark his later work.
Weston dedicated this portfolio to his great friend and patron, Merle Armitage (1893 – 1975), a self-educated jack-of-all-trades and impresario who co-founded the Los Angeles Grand Opera Association, managed the Philharmonic Auditorium in Los Angeles in the 1930s, and invented the Hollywood Bowl. More important for photography, Armitage was president of the American Institute of Graphic Arts and art director of Quick and Look Magazine as well a book designer and author with over one hundred books to his credit. Many of the books he wrote or designed featured the artists, composers, and performers with whom he was associated. He published the first important books about both Edward and Brett Weston and was their lifelong patron. Armitage was still a blur of energy and much in demand as a speaker well into his late seventies.
Gerald Robinson, who wrote the introduction, is an attorney, photographer, and patron in Portland, Oregon, who knew Weston well and often entertained and photographed with him in Oregon. Robinson is also a gifted writer and critic, and his unpublished essay on Brett Weston contains important information and perceptive observations about Weston’s life and work. Weston’s next portfolio, Oregon, of 1975, was dedicated to Robinson. -From the Afterword by Roger Aikin
