Art Brewer, Surfing's Bigger Than Life Genius Photographer, dead at 71

For three decades starting in the early 1970s, Art Brewer, along with Jeff Divine, has been one of the dual pillars of surf photography. That the two men working simultaneously have blessed the surfing world with world-class photographic talent during his most visually controversial year. While Divine was as master at framing surfers in shots that celebrated the beauty of the ocean as a surfer, Brewer was a portrait painter at heart (and in practice). His photography showed the beauty of a surfer, which sent the sexual attraction of surfing in the stratosphere. He wasn't afraid to take advantage of the ruthlessness of loud surfers, to breathe life into a culture that sometimes regresses to demure, and a humility too cool for school.

Brewer was from Dana Point, California, had started surfing at the age of twelve, picked up his first camera at the age of sixteen, and by age seven had published the photos in Surfer magazine. The completely self-made lens man spent the next decade jumping back and forth on Surfer's letterhead and emerging competition Surfing magazine. Throughout the '80s and '90s, he continued to dominate surf photography with some of the most memorable action shots the sport has ever seen.

Brewer has gone on to cast his net a little more broadly than surfing and portraiture over the past few decades, turning into the business once the digital camera and the internet eliminated traditional surf photography. It doesn't matter, Brewer has worked in the best and most visually interesting periods - not a period - of surfing history. He cut his teeth at the end of the longboard era, really learned the craft during the 1970s, gave the '80s more grit than most, and by the '90s, the future surfing performance boom and the discovery of the picture perfect surfing waves in Indonesia gave him the perfect blend of Impossible surfers and thrilling surfers.

From the surfing encyclopedia:

Brewer's size (he weighed nearly 300 pounds) and intense temperament, at the same time, suggested the idea of great creative talent, even explosive. At times, Brewer played on his aggression. When asked to submit a self-portrait of a portfolio in 1997, this stamp The Great Elephant of a Man," as described by surf journalist Evan Slater, provided a green face negative, rough cut in two, then glued and stapled together again, with the handwritten caption: "Surfing photography catches me!"

He died earlier this week at the age of 71, after suffering from liver failure. great book Master in Surf Photography: Art Brewerpublished by The Surfer's Journal in 2001.