Brett Weston 1911-1993

Collection of a Weston family member

Sotheby's New York, 28 April 1999, Sale 7296, Lot 171

Acquired by Margaret W. Weston from the above

Van Deren Coke, Beaumont Newhall, et al., Brett Weston: Master Photographer (Carmel, 1989), pl. 19

As of this writing, it is believed that only two early prints of Brett Weston's modernist Ford Trimotor have ever appeared at auction.  The print from Margaret W. Weston's collection offered here was purchased by her in these rooms on 28 April 1999, and came originally from a member of the photographer's family.  The other early print to appear at auction, which came from the collection of the photographer's friends Steever and Rosemary Oldden, was sold here on 6 April 2000 (Sale 7450, Lot 930). 

In this image, the young Brett Weston brought his modernist vision to bear on the tail assembly and fuselage of a Ford Trimotor airplane.  The innovative Trimotor was in production from 1926 to 1933, and was the Ford Company's first foray into aviation.  Nicknamed the Tin Goose, the Trimotor's design featured three air-cooled engines, which rendered it an extremely stable flier, and the novel application of light-weight corrugated aluminum for the outer skin of the aircraft.  Norman McLean, in his classic volume Young Men and Fire, writes that the Trimotor, with its relatively small hatch, was the favorite plane of smokejumpers.  It was also one of the first airplanes designed to carry passengers for commercial purposes.    

The plane's highly reflective corrugated surface presented Weston with an interesting compositional, as well as a technical, challenge.  In this print of the image, Weston was able to maintain an impressive amount of textural detail in the highlights, without sacrificing intensity or detail in the dark areas that mass around the plane.  The repetitive linearity of the plane's fuselage accentuates a complex composition of opposing diagonals that is completely balanced.  This same aesthetic sensibility can be seen in other early Weston images, especially Tin Roof, Mexico, 1925 (Brett Weston: Master Photographer, pl. 6), as well as in later images, such as Grain Silo, Oregon, 1975 (ibid., pl. 94), to say nothing of the dune studies he made throughout his career.