THE PORTFOLIOS OF BRETT WESTON

"There is nothing like the emotional thrill of holding an original Brett Weston print in your hands—
yet these volumes come as close to that experience as possible."
-Roger Aikin

Between 1939 and 1980 Brett Weston produced sixteen limited edition portfolios of original photographs. He believed passionately in the power of his original prints and chose the portfolio as the way to reach an expanded audience while still maintaining control over image quality. Today, Weston's original portfolios are rare, expensive, and relatively inaccessible in museums, archives, libraries, or private collections. Many of the photographs in these new books have never before been reproduced.

Printing technology now makes it possible, however, to bring the Brett Weston portfolios to a larger audience in reproductions that, in their rich detail, tonal scale and color, surface quality, and aesthetic appeal, are almost indistinguishable from the original prints. Printed in Belgium by Salto in 600-line screen quadtone on heavy coated stock, the photographs in San Francisco, and in the complete series, have been reproduced actual size whenever possible.

To recreate the feeling of the original portfolios, great care has been taken not only with the reproduction of the photographs, but with every aspect of these books. Where there is text in the portfolios, it is reproduced in facsimile, and the color of each book's cover has been selected to match the covers of the original portfolio cases.

The art historian, Roger Aikin, a close friend of Brett's has provided an introductory essay for each book in the series, writing that sets the photographs in the context of Weston's life and career. Dr. Aikin's critical analysis comparing the photographs of Brett and those of his father, published in 1973, remains the finest analysis of its type we have ever seen.

Because a single book containing all of the volumes in this series would require 258 reproductions, would weigh many pounds, and would be prohibitively expensive, The Portfolios of Brett Weston will appear in nineteen volumes over the next several years, beginning with San Francisco of 1939 and continuing in chronological order at the rate of three or four volumes per year. This printing schedule will provide subscribers with one portfolio at a time and has the advantage of duplicating more closely the original experience of the portfolios themselves: each one can be studied and savored in its own right.

Brett produced two versions of the White Sands portfolio, one in 1949 and one in 1976. Because they are substantially similar, they have been combined into one volume. Three volumes of the series are not, strictly speaking, portfolios. For many years, Brett had a selection of seventeen prints that he offered at a greatly reduced price to the many students who came to visit him. We have gathered these photographs into a seventeenth volume. The eighteenth volume is a book representing a Special Edition collection of photographs that Brett made in 1951. The nineteenth volume is the essay, The Portfolios of Brett Weston, by Roger Aikin.

PURCHASING INFORMATION

These books have been published in both hardbound and softbound editions.

The Hardbound Edition is published in an edition of only 250 numbered copies. This edition is available only to subscribers to the entire series. Each hardbound book is numbered and sells for $135. Originally we announced a hardbound edition of just 100 numbered copies. It quickly sold out. Because of our high production costs, in order to continue publishing these books, we produced a second printing of 150 numbered copies. Not many remain.

The Softbound Edition is published in an edition of only 1,000 copies. The books in the softbound edition are available individually or by subscription to the entire series. The price will vary depending on the number of pages in each book. For non-subscribers the price will range from $54.95 to $69.95. By subscription to the entire series each book is priced at only $44.95 to $59.95.