Brittin, Charles, 1928-....

Charles Brittin (1928-2011) was an American photographer, artist and political activist based in Los Angeles.

From the description of Charles Brittin papers, 1914-2004, bulk 1950-1975. (Getty Research Institute). WorldCat record id: 84648317

Biographical / Historical Note

American photographer and artist Charles Brittin came to prominence in the 1960s and 1970s through his associations with the Los Angeles artists Wallace Berman and George Herms. Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Brittin relocated with his mother to the Fairfax district of Los Angeles in 1944, following the death of his father. After studying film and photography at UCLA, he settled in Venice, California, and began capturing images of the rapidly changing landscape. Employed variously as a tour guide at ABC, a darkroom assistant and a mail carrier, Brittin also managed to capture images of the entertainment world, such as Orson Welles's transformation of a Venice neighborhood into a set for his movie A Touch of Evil.

After meeting Berman, Brittin began photographing him and his circle of underground artists, actors, writers and musicians. During this period, Brittin also began creating works of art himself, and helped produce three of the nine issues of Berman's now rare periodical, Semina . Brittin's skill at photographing the artistic moment continued to develop as he captured images of events and no longer extant artistic locations in Los Angeles, such as the ephemeral Artists' Tower of Protest and the innovative Ferus Gallery co-founded by Berman and Walter Hopps. It was Brittin who photographed the now-infamous police bust at the Ferus Gallery in 1957.

Throughout his career, Brittin was a political activist. During the early 1960s and 1970s, he became involved in the civil rights movement and began photographing the social protests that characterized the time. He documented his experiences canvassing neighborhoods with the equal rights group Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). His devotion to political activism and civil rights issues continued to grow as he also photographed feminist and labor demonstrations as well as numerous protests against the Vietnam War. Brittin documented many Los Angeles area clashes between police and protesters and eventually became involved with the Black Panther Party. The struggles of this movement are among the most dramatic subjects of his photographic art.

Brittin continued with both artistic and sociopolitical photography well into the 1970s. His work has been shown in several solo exhibitions and nearly twenty group exhibitions. His images have also been used in numerous books on the dissident sixties and the Beat scene in Los Angeles. Charles Brittin died of pneumonia in January 2011.

From the guide to the Charles Brittin papers, 1914-2004 (bulk 1950-1975), (The Getty Research Institute Special Collections 1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100 Los Angeles, California, 90049-1688 (310) 440-7390 http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/library/reference_form.html)