Brett Weston made these twelve photographs during several trips to Europe, the three photographs from 1960 with an 8 x 10 view camera, the rest in the early 1970s with a Rollei SL66, a camera that facilitated Weston's natural development towards the abstraction and two-dimensionality that mark his later work.

Weston dedicated this portfolio to his great friend and patron, Merle Armitage (1893 - 1975), a self-educated jack-of-all-trades and impresario who co-founded the Los Angeles Grand Opera Association, managed the Philharmonic Auditorium in Los Angeles in the 1930s, and invented the Hollywood Bowl. More important for photography, Armitage was president of the American Institute of Graphic Arts and art director of Quick and Look Magazine as well a book designer and author with over one hundred books to his credit. Many of the books he wrote or designed featured the artists, composers, and performers with whom he was associated. He published the first important books about both Edward and Brett Weston and was their lifelong patron. Armitage was still a blur of energy and much in demand as a speaker well into his late seventies.

Gerald Robinson, who wrote the introduction, is an attorney, photographer, and patron in Portland, Oregon, who knew Weston well and often entertained and photographed with him in Oregon. Robinson is also a gifted writer and critic, and his unpublished essay on Brett Weston contains important information and perceptive observations about Weston's life and work. Weston's next portfolio, Oregon, of 1975, was dedicated to Robinson.

—From the Afterword by Roger Aikin

12 1/2" x 12 1/2" 12 reproductions 48 pages

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