Artwork Page for Mojave Desert Clouds

Details / Information for Mojave Desert Clouds

Mojave Desert Clouds

1936
(American, 1911–1993)
Culture
America
Measurements
Image: 19.2 x 23.9 cm (7 9/16 x 9 7/16 in.); Matted: 40.6 x 50.8 cm (16 x 20 in.)
Credit Line
Copyright
© The Brett Weston Archive
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location
Not on view

Description

Brett Weston took his first photograph in 1925 following brief instructions from his father, the avant-garde photographer Edward Weston. Two years later, Brett was working with Edward in his portrait studio in Glendale, California, and exhibiting his own fine art photographs. When Brett made this image in 1936, he was living in San Francisco on a $90-per-month stipend from the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Arts Project, producing sculpture and “creative photography.” The following year, Brett obtained commercial assignments, including jobs for Kodak and Holiday magazine, “but I did them badly. I was eager to try, because it was bread and butter, but I just couldn’t compromise.”
A horizontally oriented gelatin silver print depicts a desert landscape. In the lower third, silhouetted Joshua trees scatter across the desert floor before a range of rounded mountains. Above the horizon, feathery white clouds radiate outward and upward in a fan-like pattern. The sky transitions from a pale gray at the bottom to a deep, dark tone at the top, creating a stark contrast with the brilliant, streaked white clouds.

Mojave Desert Clouds

1936

Brett Weston

(American, 1911–1993)
America

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