Art Brewer - Photos That Never Made the Magazine
photos courtesy of Art Brewer
by Ken McKnight
posted 2004-05-15
"It was supposed to be something holy, for God's sake, when old Ernie sat down at the piano... I swear to God, If I were a piano player, or an actor or something, and all those dopes thought I was terrific, I'd hate it. I wouldn't even want them to clap for me. People always clap at the wrong things. If I were a piano player, I'd play it in the goddamn closet."
- Holden Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye
Photo by Ken McKnight
Art Brewer is the most endearing and some times enigmatic of all the photographers to emerge from Surfer Magazine since its inception in 1961. His often inspired, creative, and beautiful case studies of lonely lineups, character portraits, super incredible land and water photography, and of course his pioneering ad photo efforts place him in a spot by himself. If Art didn't invent the correct way photographers shoot pictures of surfers then no one did.
Believe it or not, Art Brewer the photographer is modest, shy, and humble. Compliment him and he quickly says thank you and moves on.
Photo courtesy of Art Brewer
He is his own best critic. The fact that Brewer is quick not to toot his own horn is typical of his career, and perhaps one of the reasons he is a survivor in a very competitive field and business. He has spent 35 years at the forefront of the most fickle of arenas, shattering expectations, standing not just at the front of the line with the rest of the kids, but often off to the side taking it all in with his ubiquitous camera glued to his forehead. With Art you always get what you get and it is always good.
What else could you say about Art Brewer that hasn't already been said before? "Now be nice," as Brewer would say! His photography, his career, his images speak for themselves. When he likes a photo, man is it good. What he thinks is okay, we think is great. What he finds good, well we see these photos as classics, posters, covers, center spreads, and as ads.
Art has had 26 covers at Surfer Magazine and 4 for Surfing in his career. He should hold the record on that one. His favorite cover shot; The first one, of Steve Bigler at the Ranch.
Now, just suppose you could go through Mr. Brewers surf photo files like a kid in a candy store and pick a few for examination. What era would you go to? What would you pick as a favorite? And what question would you ask him about each?
It would take a huge effort to go thru Brewer's files completely. A couple hours isn't even scratching the surface when you stop to reason that Art reckons he has shot a minimum of 1000 rolls of film per year. Let's see that is 24 shots a roll times 35 years, oh my god that is a lot!
Editor's note: "The shots I picked... I tried to get those that had never seen the light of day, in the magazines or some surf company's ad. I may a slipped a couple in that had been printed before but what the heck, they are great anyway." AllAboutSurf thought you would enjoy seeing some clips from Art's Video, "The Misfits." Look to the right column and enjoy. For a copy, check out Art's website www.artbrewer.com.
The attached interview and photo pick was held as usual while Brewer was over seeing about ten different projects at one time. His busy studio is a buzz of activity and it is really hard these days to pin Art down and get him to open up. Not that he won't, it's just that he is that busy. The whole time I was there the telephone was going off, people were coming and going, dogs, kids, family, life and business. Cooperative throughout, but busy, Brewer looked over my photo picks and spoke gently, "You picked a pretty esoteric group of photos." As he kept the loop to his eye and then proceeded to describe each shot.
