Nicholas Nixon: The Brown Sisters. Thirty-Three Years.

by Peter Galassi (Afterword), Nicholas Nixon (Photographer)

In August of 1974, the photographer Nicholas Nixon made a group portrait of his wife, Bebe, and her three sisters, Heather, Mimi and Laurie--the Brown sisters. He did not keep that image, but in 1975 he made another portrait of the four, who then ranged in age between 15 and 25. Working with an 8x10-inch view camera, whose large negatives capture a wealth of detail and a luscious continuity of tone, Nixon did the same in 1976, and this second successful photograph prompted him to suggest to the sisters that they assemble for another portrait every year. The women agreed, and have continued to agree every year since.
In 1999, when the resulting series of photographs reached its twenty-fifth anniversary, The Museum of Modern Art published The Brown Sisters , presenting all of the portraits in sequence. That edition is out of print. Now, as the family's "annual rite of passage," as Nixon has called it, hits year 33--a third of a century--the Museum is publishing a second edition, including eight new photographs that bring the series up to date. "We might wish," writes Peter Galassi, the Museum's Chief Curator of Photography, "that our family included a photographer of such discipline and skill…but otherwise Nixon's pictures do what all family photographs do: they fix a presence and mark the passage of time, graciously declining to expound or explain."

Genres: Photography, Art, Nonfiction

80 pages, Hardcover

First published July 15, 2002

Reviews

[Tamara · Rating 3 out of 5]

One portrait of four sisters, every year for 33 years.

This collection, though utterly fascinating in terms of sisterhood and aging and simplicity and the basics of what it is to be human, was a bit too sparse for me. I wanted more commentary. I wanted to know more about the sisters and what was happening in their lives at the time of each portrait. I wanted to know who allies with who and what they do for a living and where they live and who they are.

But Peter Galassi's essay at the end makes a point: We bring worlds of knowledge and feeling to our own snapshots, but the Brown sisters are strangers to us, and we know next to nothing about them. The richness of Nixon's mute allusion to the living of four linked lives arises from the alertness and delicacy of his attention.

I guess.

[Damarindah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simple idea but brilliant result! Nixon portrayed his beloved wife, the eldest of the Brown sisters with her 3 siblings every year. It might started as another ordinary family tradition, but the passion, patience and consistency produced a beautiful collection.

The first book published in 2002, contains 24 years portraits in the same left to right standing poses. Saw in the catalogue he published another one in 2007, I wonder whether it has some more pics. This work is really a treasure for the Brown. Hm, I should started this with my nephews and nieces.

[Adam Thorman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now obsolete as he has continued to photograph his wife and her sisters and has published a more recent expanded version, this series is a special one. The same shot taken year after year after year, we get to watch the women age, see their relationships change, all with the kind eye of Nixon's 8x10.