Building Reflection

Brett Weston

About 1980

  • Titles Building Reflection (Descriptive)
  • Artist Brett Weston, American, 1911 - 1993
  • Medium gelatin silver print
  • Dimensions sheet: 14 × 11 in. (35.6 × 27.9 cm) image: 11 7/8 × 10 5/8 in. (30.2 × 27 cm)
  • Credit Line Collection of the Art Fund, Inc. at the Birmingham Museum of Art; Gift from the Christian Keesee Collection, AFI.71.2018, image © The Brett Weston Archive
  • Work Type photograph
  • Classification Photographs

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The object is an oversized bronze sculpture of a reclining, longhaired female nude with an up-turned face. The figure rests on a fabric which drapes over a twelve-inch high base. The surface has a warm brown patina. The whole sculpture currently rests on base that raises it 21 inches off the ground. In this sculpture, Botero reinterpreted the odalisque, merging characteristics of primitive fertility goddesses with the voluptuous women of Rubens, Renoir, or Titian. Botero concentrates the heft in his figures at their center to attain the highest degree of volumetric expression and linear precision. His figures have been dubbed "Boteromorphs." Botero's art reflect the culture of his native Medellín, where pre-Columbian aesthetic traditions intermingle with the lingering influence of medieval Spanish Catholicism. Botero has also absorbed the influences of Diego Rivera, Henri Matisse, and others.
Landscape with a lake in the foreground and snowy mountains in the background.
Portrait #5, Juan Hamilton Sculptures, William Clift, gelatin silver print
Banaras, India, Linda Connor, contact print on printing-out paper, toned with gold chloride