William Wegman is a photographer who is best known for his portraits of his Weimaraner dogs in various poses and costumes. He was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in 1943. Wegman graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art in 1965 with a B.F.A. in painting and from the University of Illinois in 1967 with an M.F.A in painting. In 1970, he moved to Long Beach, California, where he taught at the California State College for one year. There, Wegman bought his first Weimaraner, who he named after the artist Man Ray. He started photographing his dog because Man Ray would wander in front of his camera as he filmed, and he was struck by how Man Ray’s grey fur looked on black and white film. Wegman describes his Weimaraners as the “perfect fashion models,” with their “elegant, slinky forms” covered in gray (artnet). Four years following Man Ray’s death, he got another Weimaraner, who he named Fay Ray. Fay Ray and her offsprings have been part of Wegman’s photographs since. Even though Wegman is most commonly known as a dog photographer, he does other types of photography as well. In the 1960s and 1970s, Wegman was a pioneering conceptual artist. Conceptual art is works in which the idea, planning, and production process are considered more important than the result or the execution. Wegman’s dealer, Angela Westwater, comments that Wegman’s “conceptual mindset” is at the center of all of his works.

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