The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of June 7, 2026

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
gelatin silver print
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.)
John L. Severance Fund 1992.52
© The Brett Weston Archive
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.”
  • Turner, Evan H. “The Year in Review for 1992.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 2 (February 1993): 38–79. Mentioned: p. 69 www.jstor.org
    Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996. Reproduced: P. 373
  • Brett Weston: Photographs. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 21-May 6, 2018).
    Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 24, 1996-February 2, 1997).
  • {{cite web|title=Mojave Desert Clouds|url=false|author=Brett Weston|year=1936|access-date=07 June 2026|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1992.52