Bruce Weber
Weber in 2011
Born	(1946-03-29)March 29, 1946 (age 79) Greensburg, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Photographer, film director
Spouse	Nan Bush
Website	bruceweber.com

Bruce Weber (born March 29, 1946) is an American fashion photographer and film director known for his work with fashion brands and magazines.

Weber has directed several films, includingLet's Get Lost (1988), a documentary about jazz musicianChet Baker, andChop Suey (2001), a portrait of a wrestler.Let's Get Lost received anAcademy Award nomination forBest Documentary Feature and a Cinecritica Award at theVenice Film Festival.^[1] Weber is also the founder and co-owner of Little Bear Press, which publishes books and the independent arts magazineAll-American.^[2]

Weber has been accused of sexual assault by more than 20 models, and has been the subject of three lawsuits,^[3] all of which have reached settlements.^[4] He currently resides inMiami^[5][6] and is married toNan Bush [de], who is also his agent.^[7][8]

Weber was born inGreensburg, Pennsylvania, to a Jewish family.^[9] His fashion photography first appeared in the late 1970s inGQ magazine, where he had frequent cover photos. Nan Bush, his longtime companion and agent, was able to secure a contract withFederated Department Stores to shoot the 1978Bloomingdales mail catalog. He came to the attention of the general public in the late 1980s and early 1990s with his advertising images forCalvin Klein.^[10] He was first approached by Klein to work on an underwear campaign, and Weber took inspiration fromHerbert List's shoot in Santorini.^[11] His straightforward black-and-white shots, featuring an unclothed woman and man on a swing facing each other, two clothed men in bed, and modelMarcus Schenkenberg suggestively holding jeans in front of himself in a shower, catapulted them both into the national spotlight.^[11][12] His photograph for Calvin Klein of Olympic athleteTom Hintnaus in white briefs is an iconic image.^[13][14] He photographed the winter 2006Ralph Lauren Collection.

Some of Weber's earliest fashion photography appeared in theSoHo Weekly News and featured a spread of men wearing only underwear. The photos became the center of controversy and Weber was told by some that he would never find work as a fashion photographer again. This reputation stuck with him as he says: "I don't really work editorially in a large number of magazines because a lot of magazines don't want my kind of photographs. It's too risky for them."^[15][10][16]

After doing photo shoots for and of famous people (many of whom were featured inAndy Warhol'sInterview magazine), Weber made short films of teenage boxers (Broken Noses),^[17][18] his beloved pet dogs, and later, a longer film entitledChop Suey.^[19][20] He directedLet's Get Lost, a 1988 documentary about jazz trumpeterChet Baker.^[21][22]

Weber's photographs are occasionally in color; however, most are in black and white or shades of a tone.^[17] They appear in compilations in books includingA House is Not a Home,^[23] as well asBear Pond andGentle Giants. The latter two are books of his photographs of his pet dogs.^[24]

Weber began collaborating with croonerChris Isaak in the mid-1980s, photographing Isaak in 1986 for his second album,Chris Isaak. In 1988, Weber photographed ashirtless Isaak in bed for a fashion spread inRolling Stone.^[25] Isaak appeared inLet's Get Lost and Weber has directed a music video for Isaak. Weber photographedHarry Connick, Jr. for his 1991 albumBlue Light, Red Light. In 1993, Weber photographed singer-songwriterJackson Browne for his 1993 albumI'm Alive.

His ad campaigns include projects forCalvin Klein,Ralph Lauren,^[26]Pirelli,^[27]Abercrombie & Fitch,Revlon,Miu Miu,^[28]Armani,^[29]Louis Vuitton^[30] andGianni Versace. His editorial work has appeared inVogue,GQ,Vanity Fair,Elle,Life,Interview, andRolling Stones magazines.

Weber exhibits his work in prominent museums around the world, often working closely with the curator and art director Dimitri Levas to realize his vision. Weber's most recent solo shows includeFar From Home at Dallas Contemporary (2016),Detroit: Bruce Weber at theDetroit Institute of Arts (2012), andHaiti/Little Haiti (2010) at theMuseum of Contemporary Art in North Miami.^{[citation needed]}

Weber's cinematic works—including his five feature-length films—often begin with a photo sitting. "All my films begin from finding someone I want to take a photograph of,"^[31] Weber told theSunday Times of London in 2008.

Broken Noses (1987)

While he was photographing the Olympic hopefuls for Interview Magazine in 1984, Weber met Andy Minsker, a young boxer from Oregon, and started interviewing him on camera. While he originally intended to make a short to accompany an exhibition he was opening in Paris, Weber became very excited when he reviewed the dailies and decided to continue the story.Broken Noses (1987), the resulting feature documentary, was nominated for the Grand Jury Award at Sundance in 1988.^[32][1]

Let's Get Lost (1988)

As Weber was completing work onBroken Noses, he met the jazz trumpeter and vocalist Chet Baker and began filming him, again with a mind to creating a short film based on their portrait sitting.^[1] But filming with Baker continued right through the presentation ofBroken Noses inCannes that year—with Weber ultimately assembling the footage of travel, recording sessions, and interviews into his second feature,Let's Get Lost (1988). The film debuted inVenice (where it won the Cinecritica award) and was subsequently nominated for a Grand Jury Award at Sundance, and for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.^[1] Filming took a year with Weber approaching it, as he toldThe Times of London, "like his (Baker's) interpretation of a song, open-ended, not lyrical or strict."^[33] The film features clips of Baker "in his prime in the 1950s...combined with his drug-damaged incarnation in the film's present day: gaunt and spaced out but still striking." Baker, Weber said, "was like a geyser in a national park. Exploding up and raining and raining back down, falling apart on everyone."^[33]

Chop Suey (2001)

Chop Suey, a kaleidoscopic portrait of the wrestler Peter Johnson, was released in 2001.^[34]The Sunday Times of London reviewed it as "an aesthetic autobiography, in which he ruminates on some of his heroes and inspirations."^[35] According to aNew York Times review at the time the film "moves easily between video and film and between black-and-white and color as Mr. Weber explores the world around him, a world that he finds full of beauty and erotic possibility. One of his most engaging discoveries is the 91-year-old Sir Wilfred, who as a young desert explorer made photographs of Bedouin tribesman that prefigure Mr. Weber's own work."^[36]

A Letter to True (2004)

Weber released the impressionistic anti-war filmA Letter to True in 2004, in the aftermath of 9/11, and addressed to one of Weber's beloved golden retrievers."^[37][38] The film is an 'audiovisual scrapbook'^[39] In a review of the filmThe Sunday Times of London details how Weber rhapsodises over some of his favourite people, memories and ideas. (He) is a shameless old softie for whom dogs are emblematic of a happy home, (and)‘cherishes domestic security amid the fear created by the…attacks."^[40]

The Treasure of His Youth (2022)

Weber's fifth feature-length film focuses on the prominent Italian photojournalist Paolo Di Paolo, who was 94 when Weber began shooting the documentary.^[41][42]

Short films

His work-in-progress Robert Mitchum feature,Nice Girls Don't Stay for Breakfast was screened at the New York Film Festival in 2017.^[43] He has also directed seven short films:Beauty Brothers, Parts I-IV (1987),Backyard Movie (1991),Gentle Giants (1994),The Teddy Boys of the Edwardian Drape Society (1995),Wine and Cupcakes (2007),The Boy Artist (2008), andLiberty City is Like Paris to Me (2009).^[1]

In December 2017, model Jason Boyce sued Weber inNew York State Supreme Court, claimingsexual assault, including inappropriate touching and kissing during a 2014 casting session.^[44][45] The suit also targets Jason Kanner of Soul Artist Management, which managed Boyce when the alleged assault took place, and Little Bear Inc., the production company operated by Weber's companion, Nan Bush.^[46] A second model, Mark Ricketson, came forward in December 2017 alleging similar claims and joined Boyce's lawsuit against Weber.^[47]

Weber has denied the allegations,^[48] stating toThe New York Times that the allegations were "untrue" and that he had "never touched anyone inappropriately".^[49]

In January 2018,The New York Times detailed sexual assault allegations by 15 male models against Weber.^[3]

In January 2019, it was reported that Weber asked to dismiss the original suit by Jason Boyce, with evidence provided that the model sent him racy photos and texts prior to and after the shoots.^[50]

By 2020, the Plaintiffs' cases against Weber began to face apparent setbacks, and in June 2020,Lisa Bloom, a high-powered harassment claims lawyer representing Weber's accusers in various suits, was ordered to pay Weber $28,000 in legal costs after Boyce refused to answer certain questions at a deposition.^[51]

By September 2021, the 3 cases against Weber were each either dismissed or settled for undisclosed sums.^[4]

On 3 April 2024,The Hollywood Reporter published an interview onAlan Ritchson wherein theReacher star comments on prior allegations against Weber andMario Testino reported byThe New York Times:^[52]

Some of the stories were just like mine. I was just starting to build a platform and get my voice in the business, and I wondered, ‘Should I say something?’ Because all of the stories that those models were telling were my own. It’s all true.

Weber is married to Nan Bush^[7] who is also his agent and one of his collaborators.^[8]

In a 2002 interview he said, "I've had a lot of great romances. Men and women, I mean I feel like I can fall in love almost every day. I feel sorry for people who don't feel that."^[8]

He has lived inMiami since 1998.^[5][6]

In 1990, Weber directed the music video for thePet Shop Boys single "Being Boring". He filmed a party with a diverse group of models. The video was filmed in one day by two film crews in a house on Long Island. Content including male and female nudity prevented the video from being played onMTV in the United States. In 1996 he directed the video for the Pet Shop Boys single "Se a vida é (That's the Way Life Is)" on location in a Wet 'n' Wild, awater park nearOrlando, Florida. In 2002, he again directed a Pet Shop Boys video, for the song "I Get Along" from the albumRelease. Weber filmed this video on location at his own Little Bear studio in New York City. He also directed the music video for theChris Isaak song "Blue Spanish Sky".^{[citation needed]}

Bruce and his wife, Nan, began the publishing imprint Little Bear Press where, in addition to monographs and exhibition catalogs, they have published an independent arts journal titledAll-American. While some volumes have been published by external publishers, the bulk of the series has been published by Little Bear Press. TheAll-American publishes works by artists, photographers, essayists, poets and other personalities. The subjects of the journal are sometimes already well known but just as often, the participants and subjects ofAll-American are noteworthy not for fame, but because their stories or accomplishments reveal something that Weber believes will resonate with readers on a deeper and more personal level. His dedication to theAll-American project is motivated by a desire to connect, inspire, and support the work of emerging artists.^[2]

• Rolling Stone: The Photographs, Simon & Schuster (1989)
• Pictures Of Peace, Alfred A. Knopf (1991)
• Bruce Hainley and David Rimanelli,Shock of the Newfoundland: Bruce Weber's canine camera, "Artforum International 33" (April 1995), pp. 78–81.
• Il Tempo E La Moda, Skira; Exhibition Catalogue: "Biennale Firenze" (1996)
• Gianni Versace,Rock and Royalty, Abbeville (February 1997)
• David Leddick,The Male Nude, New York: Taschen (1998)
• Pirelli Calendar 1964–2004, Rizzoli (2004)
• Heel To Heal (2004)
• Paintings of New York, 1800–1950 (2005)
• Monica Bellucci, Rizzoli (2010)
• Kate Moss, Rizzoli (2012)

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