e CENTER FOR CREATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY • UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA RESEARCH SERIES NUMBER 15 JANUARY 1982 DEAN BROWN Contents The Dean Brown Archive 3 by James L. Enyeart An Appreciation 5 by Carol Brown Dean Brown: An Overview by Susan E. Ruff 6 Dean Brown: 11 A Black-and-White Portfolio Dean Brown: 25 A Color Portfolio Exhibitions of the Center 45 1975-1981 by Nancy D. Solomon Acquisitions Highlight: 51 Jerry Uelsmann by Sarah J. Moore Acquisitions: 54 July-December 1980 compiled by Sharon Denton The Archive, Research Series, is a continuation of the research publication entitled Cmter for Creative Photography; there is no break in the consecutive numbering of issues. The A ,chive makes available previously unpublished or unique material from the collections in the Archives of the Center for Creative Photography. Subscription and renewal rate: $20 (USA), S30 (foreign), for four issues. Some back issues are available. Orders and inquiries should be addressed to: Subscriptions Center for Creative Photography University of Arizona 843 E. University Blvd. Tucson, Arizona 85719 Center for Creative Photography University of Arizona Copyright © 1982 Arizona Board of Regents All Rights Reserved Photographs by Dean Brown Copyright ©1982 by Carol Brown Designed by Nancy Solomon Griffo Alphatype by Morneau Typographers Laser-Scanned Color Separations by American Color Printed by Prisma Graphic Bound by Roswell Bookbinding The Archive, Research Series, of the Center for Creative Photography is supported in part by Polaroid Corporation. Plate 31 was reproduced in Cactus Country, a volume in the Time­ Life Book series-The American Wilderness. Plates 30, 34, and 37 were reproduced in Wild Alaska from the same series. The Dean Brown Archive by JAMES L. ENYEART DEAN BROWN'S CAREER AS A PHOTOGRAPHER ended For Brown each transparency was both a finished abruptly with his death in 1973 just as he was begin­ object to be appreciated on its own terms and the ning to receive international recognition. Publications foundation of a different creation in the form of the like Camera magazine had already published portfolios print. He was as familiarwith each of the thousands of of his photographs. Brown's use of the dye transfer transparencies as most photographers are with their process was unique because of his highly formalvision prints. When he undertook the transformation from which enabled him to successfully transform qualities the transparency to the print, he made small, intimate inherent in the classical straight aesthetic from black dye transfers, which maintained a quality of meditative and white into color. Brown's work is a welcome quietude reflecting his own contemplative personality reminder of the energy and passionate commitment to and the melodic silence found deep in the embrace of a broad range of experimental ideas by a generation of nature itself. new photographers, which characterized the beginning The Center is indebted to Carol Brown and the of the 1970s. Dean Brown Fund for the gift of his archive, and to The quality and breadth of Brown's accomplishment Mrs. Raymond Brown who, along with Carol Brown, is remarkable in view of his relatively short lifetime helped make this issue of The Archive possible. Susan (1936 to 1973). The number of his works alone rival the Ruff, Assistant Archives Curator at the Center, has aspirations of many blessed with a more average lifespan. worked formore than a year processing and research­ In brief, his archive contains fifty thousand transparen­ ing the Brown Archive in order to make it accessible to cies, one hundred and fifty color prints, twenty-nine the patrons of the Center. We are grateful to her for her hundred black-and-white prints, twenty thousand neg­ dedication to this project and for her article, which atives, and personal photographic notebooks and re­ introduces Dean Brown to readers of the Center's lated diary materials. publications. 3 Dean and Carol in their loft,April 1979 (self-portrajt): gelatin silver print, 21.6 x 14.1 cm, 78:224:004 An Appreciation by CAROL BROWN IN ONE OF THOSE COINCIDENCES that went un­ print, and obviously, Dean loved the challenge and noticed until time revealed its key position in a parade the ultimate reward in each of the disciplines. of events leading to your reading this catalog, Dean The evening ended. Not quite three years later, saw Tucson for the first time in November 1970 and Dean's life ended. I became the guide to the vast met Jim Enyeart in New York a few weeks later. Jim mountain of photographs he left behind. It was a was on a visit from the University of Kansas, where he great honor and a nightmare responsibility. Even with was Professor of the History of Fine Arts and Curator the generous help of many friends and even though of Photography at its museum. Tucson was an exotic I devoted almost all of my attention to the task, I name to him, a suburb of Santa Fe perhaps, as it was was unable to care for the pictures properly because to Dean until he was given an assignment there by of lack of knowledge, lack of facilities, lack of time, Time-Life Books to shoot swimming pools forLandsca pe and, simply, lack of Dean. Once every year or so I had Gardening. Our love affairwith the desert began then. to get away for a few weeks. I developed the habit Our confidants were Mary Rose and Dick Duffield of flying to Tucson, renting a car, and fading into who, with infinite patience and expertise, answered the desert. Eventually I heard about the Center. Later our endless questions (what is the name of the orange I heard Jim was there. Finally we had coffee together. flower that turns the Papago Reservation into a Persian And then he opened the door to his new museum and carpet, where can we stand to clearly see the full moon invited Dean into this photographer's paradise. rise and the sun set at precisely the same time). What are the constituents of heaven? Everything Lee Witkin introduced Dean to Jim at his gallery is acid-free, dust-free, frenzy-free. The society is the in New York one cold afternoon. A conversation equal of the climate (Weston rubs elbows with Smith). began that ended twelve hours later at our loft near The staffis bright, cheerful, painstaking, and devoted, Chinatown.Jim and Dean shared passions for painting, in spite of the absence of wings, which would be wilderness, civil rights, adventure, the fine print, cumbersome in the inner vaults. By now I think you whimsey, and so it goes. Jim remembers that Dean can understand my deep gratitude to all of the people said he was turning from black-and-white prints to involved with the Center. color prints because they were more like music-both I also want to extend my special thanks to the con­ could be appreciated on so many levels and by laymen tributors to the Dean Brown Fund, which was donated and experts alike. Jim believed that the high degree of to the Center along with the archive in 1979. Their technical excellence required to play a musical instru­ generosity and support made that initial preservation ment equalled that required to make a dye transfer of Dean's work possible. 5 Dean Brown: An Overview by SUSAN E. RUFF LANDSCAPES AND THE WILDERNESS can be risky thwarted by Brown's adherence to simplicity of form subject matter for a photographer. Because it is easy to and subtle composition. succumb to the cliche in nature photography and pro­ The mastery and passion that Brown brought to his duce another "pretty scenic," the photographer must photography were indicative of the way he lived his use intuition and creativity to transcend the banal. life. Never undertaking projects half-heartedly, he The use of color in nature photography adds another was often consumed with understanding a subject level of difficulty.While black-and-white photography thoroughly. Whether it was photography, languages, with its inherent tonal abstraction tends to distance music, or Chinese cooking, he devoted his utmost the artist from perceived reality, color offers a more energy to mastering each. direct translation from the natural world to the image. Brown majored in the exacting field of linguistics Consequently, getting beyond the trite is a difficult at Cornell University. Linguistics taught Brown to task. think precisely and to appreciate detail. More practically, Dean Brown was an artist who surmounted these though, linguistics satisfied Brown's innate curiosity problems through a variety of means. While landscapes about people and their lifestyles. Through linguistics, and nature may appear easy to capture photographically he became proficient in Chinese and German and when one is surrounded by beautiful sites, organizing mastered techniques that enabled him to learn any these elements into a coherent image is another matter. language easily, which he did with Japanese, Dutch, Developing his own approach, he combined subtleties Italian, Navajo,and Eskimo. Although he left Cornell of form and color to interpret diverse aspects of en­ and linguistics, his training in that field stayed with vironments. His vision was rooted in clarifying the him and helped him on photography assignments. He lighting, the subject, and the composition within the could rapidly develop a rapport with his subjects frame. To translate his individual color sense into through language, thereby easing their tension in front pristine, jewel-like imagery, he mastered the dye trans­ of the camera. fer process. Brown left Cornell to attend Brooklyn College Response by the viewer to Brown's work may be where he graduated cum laude in music in 1961. He multileveled.