ALEN MACWEENEY
"The pictures he took...have the intensity
and poignancy of rediscovered love letters."
- The New Yorker
Born in Dublin, Alen MacWeeney began his international career at twenty, in Paris, as Richard Avedon's assistant.
Across a half-century, he's become especially known for his ability to artistically photograph interiors (Charleston: a Bloomsbury House and Garden and The Home of the Surrealists), countrysides (Stone Walls & Fabled Landscapes), portraits (Bloomsbury Reflections and Irish Travellers), and even people's inner lives (Spaces for Silence). His work has appeared in LIFE, House & Garden, The New Yorker, Vogue, The World of Interiors, Town & Country, Departures, Travel + Leisure, Connoisseur, The New York Times Magazine, GEO, Fortune, Harper's Bazaar, Smithsonian, Esquire, American Photographer, G.Q. His pictures are in many private collections and in the permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the George Eastman House, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and others. He is represented by the Steven Kasher Gallery in New York City.
Alen MacWeeney's photography is distinguished by the painterly way he unveils the character of his subject, creating a picture to tell a story. His portraiture is direct and apparently simple, but his compositional touch can be complex. One never feels him interfering: the subject comes through without the camera getting in the way, allowing a great sense of calm, of thoughtful repose, to enter his work. He may incorporate the environment for added effect, but always with the skill that one associates with a master painter. The wide range of emotion - from humor to drama - makes a MacWeeney portrait seem as if the subject has just left the room and the dust is gently settling. His use of light and composition, with rich gorgeous colors and a vast range of grays, is to be marveled at.
