Brett Weston

mounted, signed and dated in pencil on the mount, 1929-30

Acquired from the estate of photographer and filmmaker LeRoy Robbins

Other prints of this image:

Stephen Bennett Williams, ed., Brett Weston: Out of the Shadow (Oklahoma City Museum of Art and The Phillips Collection, Washington, D. C., 2008), pl. 48

Brett Weston Photographs: 1925 - 1930 and 1980 - 1982 (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1983), p. 9

Brett Weston: Voyage of the Eye (Aperture, 1975), p. 93

Brett Weston: Master Photographer (Photography West Graphics, 1989), pl. 8

Therese Thau Heyman, Seeing Straight: The f.64 Revolution in Photography (Oakland Museum, 1992), pl. 70

Jean Tucker, Group f.64 (University of Missouri-St. Louis, 1978), p. 45

This early print, on semi-glossy paper and mounted to light gray board, has a range of gray tones and is in generally excellent condition. In raking light, a deposit of original retouching is visible in the upper right quadrant, as well as a faint, small (1/4-inch) scratch that does not break the emulsion in the lower left quadrant. The edges of the mount are rubbed, and there is age-appropriate darkening at the periphery, front and back, as well as light soiling on the reverse.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The early work of Brett Weston is remarkable for a number of reasons.  It is surprising that images of such complexity and sophistication could be created by a young photographer with such limited experience (he took Hand and Ear at the age of 19).  It is also notable that, from the start, he made photographs that were completely independent of his father's, Edward Weston's, influence.  Hand and Ear illustrates the extent to which Brett operated in his own aesthetic territory.  

The early print of Hand and Ear offered here comes originally from the collection of the photographer LeRoy Robbins (1904 – 1987), who worked with Brett Weston and other photographers employed by the Federal Art Project in the 1930s.  A commercial photographer from St. Louis, Robbins moved west in 1931, after losing his business in the Depression.  He took photographs in Mexico in 1931-32, then joined the film industry in Los Angeles, where he worked as a still photographer and director.  From 1936 to 1939, he was a photographer for the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration, before returning to film in 1940, working as an editor, a sound recorder, and documentary film director for the next three decades.  His photographs are in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art, among other institutions.

Brett Weston moved from Carmel to Southern California with his father early in 1935.  In addition to establishing a portrait business, both father and son found work as documentary photographers with the Federal Art Project.  Brett rose to the position of supervisor of some 20 photographers associated with the WPA in both Northern and Southern California before opening his own studio in San Francisco in 1937.  In addition to LeRoy Robbins, other Federal Art Project photographers at the time included Brett's brother Chandler, Sonya Noskowiak, Sybil Anikeef, and Hy Hirsch. 

The enigmatic Hand and Ear has long occupied a central role in Brett Weston's oeuvre.  Its negative date has been given variously as 1929 and 1930.  It is believed that Hand and Ear was the image shown in the landmark Group f.64 show at the de Young Museum in 1932, under the title Three Fingers and an Ear.   In contrast to Brett Weston's other photographs from this early period, Hand and Ear is notable for having a human subject.  Most of his photographs from this time concentrated on architectural or natural forms – his tightly composed study of corrugated roofs in Mexico (1926), for example, or his geometric composition of clay pipes (1927).  Hand and Ear is nonetheless a virtuosic work of photographic Modernism in which the young Weston pays equal attention to composition and to capturing a remarkable degree of photographic detail.    

Examples of this photograph, from any printing date, are rarely seen.  As of this writing, only four other prints of Hand and Ear, all apparently made in the later decades of the photographer's life, appear in the auction records from 1983 to 2007. It is believed that an early rendering of Hand and Ear, such as the print offered here, has never before appeared at auction.