Upcoming Exhibition at The Breman Museum

The Breman Museum, in collaboration with Lumière gallery, announces the opening of the exhibition
Icons: Selections from the Portrait Unbound – Photography by Robert Weingarten

Opening April 2, 2023
2pm Presentation by Bob Yellowlees

In The Portrait Unbound, Robert Weingarten poses a central question: “Can you express a person’s being and character photographically without showing them?” The challenge is devising a way of making a portrait that separates the subject from the specifics of time and place.

Weingarten first determined that his portrait subjects should be prominent and recognizable individuals of high achievement. The process involved introducing the goal of the project to the subject and requesting a list of objects, places and things that define who they are. During the ensuing dialog he dug deeper with his subjects and inquired about their background, interests, experiences, accomplishments and the places that were important to them. The process was collaborative to a degree uncommon in most photographer-subject relationships.

In the construction of these images the spirit of the Cubism is on display, with a model for illusionistic art of seemingly transparent planes superimposed so as to suggest that the eye can see into and through objects. Weingarten has coined the term “translucent composite” as a new addition to the vocabulary that describes his digital practice and defines one of the primary characteristics of this work.

“A viewer’s ability to appreciate these multi-layered, multiscaled, visually active images is dependent upon the viewer’s willingness to slow down and look. It also requires a readiness to reframe one’s own idea of what a photograph, portrait and/or digital image should look like. Weingarten’s works are challenging and puzzling to some viewers, but they also reflect a moment in the broader culture and the building of a visual language in a digital world.” — Shannon Perich, Curator, The Photographic History Collection, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

Weingarten’s photography has been featured in more than 90 exhibitions worldwide and is in over 40 major museum collections including The National Gallery of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, George Eastman House, High Museum of Art, J. Paul Getty Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Denver Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, as well as other public, corporate and private collections.

Featured in this exhibition is the work of Robert Weingarten.

Select this link to view his complete artist page.

Robert Weingarten (1941) At the age of 54 he decided to become fully committed to his photographic art. His Landscapes often showcase repetitive natural form and magnificent hues. The 6:30 AM series, for which Weingarten photographed the same view during the year 2003 from his home in Malibu, Calif., is a perfect example of this style. The 6:30 AM series was featured in a 2005 book of the same title, published by Hatje Cantz, which was Weingarten’s third photography book in two years. The series displays his ability to evoke a sense of natural superiority reminiscent of the Hudson River School painters while exhibiting an Impressionistic sensibility.

Weingarten’s work has been featured in more than 80 exhibitions worldwide, most of them solo exhibitions. He has earned the distinction Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society (FRPS) Bath, England, and his images are in the permanent collections of 30 museums, including the J. Paul Getty Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), Whitney Museum of American Arts, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, National Gallery of Australia, George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, and the High Museum of Art. Numerous exhibitions in the United States and Europe have been complemented by six books of his photographs.

Robert Weingarten provides an Overview of The Portrait Unbound

Hank Aaron & Robert Weingarten discuss Aaron’s portrait