Clouds

Bob Brooks was a summer resident of Montville, Maine, when he photographed the sky above his town. As the cumulus clouds floated by, the camera lens captured their ever-shifting forms and dynamic movement. The resulting black and white photograph is part of a series the artist created about clouds in the 1980s. By enlarging the photograph and printing it on canvas, Brooks elevated a seemingly commonplace view of the sky into a work of art. As a careful study of light and shadow, the photograph gently prods the viewer to pause and consider the transient beauty of clouds.

Maine has been a constant source of inspiration for the artist. For over forty years, he taught photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York City beginning in the 1970s and spent each summer photographing Maine. In 2021, Clouds was moved to its current location, which is only 40 miles from where Brooks took the original photograph.