The American Bruce Weber is known for his portraits of supermodels such as Claudia Schiffer and Cindy Crawford and for advertising campaigns for luxury labels. However, his four-legged friends are among the most sought-after protagonists in front of his camera: Weber and his wife Nan Bush are the proud owners of a total of eight dogs. Her special love is the Golden Retrievers, a breed of dogs from Great Britain. They are considered meek and family-friendly.
Weber and Bush got their first dog in 1972. They named him Rowdy – “after Clint Eastwood’s role in the TV series ‘A Thousand Miles of Dust'”, as Weber writes in his new illustrated book “The Golden Retriever Photographic Society”. But it shouldn’t stay with a dog. Weber and his wife have accompanied more than 22 dogs over the past five decades.
Bruce Weber publishes an illustrated book about Golden Retrievers
“Golden Retrievers are like potato chips – you just can’t stop at one”, a judge once said to him on the sidelines of a dog show, Weber recalls in the foreword to the over 500-page illustrated book. For the book, the 75-year-old collected numerous photos that were taken over the past few decades.
It is not always just the dogs that can be seen in the photos. Sometimes a naked Drew Barrymore cuddles with a four-legged friend, sometimes supermodel Carolyn Murphy shares her pizza with her dog. Most of the recordings are in black and white, as we know it from Bruce Weber.
BAGS
“Bruce Weber. The Golden Retriever Photographic Society”
Bruce Weber, Jane Goodall, Dimitri Levas
Hardcover in a slipcase, 28 x 35.5 cm, 3.69 kg, 520 pages
125 euros
taschen.com
© Taschen Verlag
The pictures are complemented by a conversation with the 87-year-old animal researcher Jane Goodall, who also grew up with dogs before she later became known as a chimpanzee expert. The film “A Letter to True” (2004), which he dedicated to the Golden Retrievers, shows how much Weber cares about his dogs. “After all these years I believe more and more that dogs are real saviors”, writes Weber in the book and addressed to his wife: “The story of our four-legged friends is our story. May we have their barks forever in our life together. “
The illustrated book “Bruce Weber. The Golden Retriever Photographic Society” is in Taschen Verlag published and costs 125 euros.