Bruce Weber - biography
Do you own a work by Bruce Weber, which you would like to sell?
Bruce Weber Prices
Artist | Artwork | Price (incl. premium) |
---|---|---|
Bruce Weber | Gustavo | €3.332 |
Bruce Weber was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania on 29 March 1946. The son of a photographer, he initially studied acting and film before deciding to follow in his father’s footsteps and dedicating himself to photography and the photographer Diane Arbus organised an apprenticeship with her own teacher Lisette Model at the New School for National Research in New York. Weber found his key subject in fashion photography and his first pictures appeared in the 1970s in the renowned men’s magazine GQ, often on the front cover. Weber’s friend and agent and later wife Nan Bush arranged a lucrative contract with the Federal Department Stores (today Macy’s) which allowed him to photograph the entire catalogue for Bloomingdale’s. This brought Bruce Weber additional attention and further contracts – advertising campaigns for luxury labels such as Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren, for which he was inspired by the prominent German photographer Herbert List, ultimately brought him the international breakthrough.
Bruce Weber had to contend with opposition, especially at the beginning of his career. One of his first picture series in the New York SoHo Weekly News showed men in underwear, causing great protests at the time and putting such a strain on his reputation with many editors that it was temporarily difficult for him to obtain new assignments. Weber continued, unimpressed, on his artistic path, photographing what he wanted, mostly in black and white and occasionally in color, but almost always brilliantly. Numerous portraits of celebrities appeared in Interview magazine, founded by Andy Warhol, and he published over 15 illustrated books, of which Bear Pond, a collection of naked men with poems by Reynold Price, triggered further discussion. Less controversial were the numerous pictures of dogs, mostly Golden Retrievers, which he photographed and filmed for over fifty years. Bruce Weber also made a film about a young boxer (under the telling name Broken Noses) and – very successfully – one about the jazz trumpet player Chet Baker (Let’s Get Lost). He also filmed music videos for the pop group Pet Shop Boys, again causing controversy with the first, Being Boring, due to the nudity featured.
During his decades-long work for large fashion labels such as Abercrombie & Fitch m Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren, Bruce Weber made a decisive contribution to their visual image. He has received prizes and awards for his photographic and film work including the Clio Award for Recognition in Apparel in 1986 and the Boston Society of Film Critics Award in 1989 for his documentary film Let’s Get Lost, which was also nominated for that most important film prize of all, the Oscar, that same year, but failed to win. With his idiosyncratic and gutsy statement-photography, which was never shy of taboo themes, he developed a new pictorial language for fashion photography of the 21st century, which scratched the surface of the glittering glamour world, and for that very reason is perceived by many admirers as exciting, thrilling and fresh.
© Kunsthaus Lempertz
Do you own a work by Bruce Weber, which you would like to sell?
Artist | Artwork | Price (incl. premium) |
---|---|---|
Bruce Weber | Gustavo | €3.332 |
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