Steve McQueen, Mees, After Evening Dip, New Years Day, 2002, 2005. Color & Scale: The Estate of Martha Hummer Bradley.
The Collector's Eye
Like many great collections, the late Martha Hummer Bradley's collection reflects themes from her lifelong passions: multidisciplinary art, diverse travel, the mystique of the ocean. Yet it was her strong aesthetic judgement that ultimately discerned the prolific artists and photographers she championed for decades. Hummer Bradley’s formal interest began with her time studying Art History as an undergraduate at Stanford University, which developed into a taste for artists like Joan Miró, David Hockney, and Christo, all early acquisitions to the collection. The images she collected also reveal an attraction to artists working outside of a single medium, like artist-director Steve McQueen or painter, sculptor, and photographer Clifford Ross. At the time Hummer Bradley began collecting in the late 1970s and early 80s, photography was burgeoning with fresh talent, and she was drawn to artists working in unexpected ways. Three decades on, Hummer Bradley could boast an encyclopedic knowledge of contemporary photography and the photographers she was remarkably early in identifying.
Sam Taylor-Johnson, Escape Artist (Red), 2008. Color & Scale: The Estate of Martha Hummer Bradley.
Experimentation in London
In the mid-1980s, Hummer Bradley moved from her native Los Angeles to London with then-spouse, Joseph Field, with whom she had two sons, Matthew and Charlton. Both recall growing up in art-centric London visiting myriad galleries, theaters, and museums with their mother, during which time Hummer Bradley worked for both Sotheby's and Christie's. She also began supporting local galleries by collecting up-and-coming British artists, like Sam Taylor-Johnson. Seen here, Taylor-Johnson’s Escape Artist (Red) evokes the highly emotional, psychological themes for which she rose to prominence in the early 1990s. Investigating identity and perception through celebrity and self-portraiture, the artist’s cinematic style spans video, installation, and photography — just the type of multidisciplinary talent inherent to London's experimental gallery scene Hummer Bradley favored.
Clifford Ross, Hurricane XXI, 2001. Color & Scale: The Estate of Martha Hummer Bradley.
A Love for Coastal Life
Hummer Bradley’s lifelong admiration for ocean and water imagery began with the California coast, where she was raised and would return to live more than 20 years after moving to London. Even in the fog of the Thames, she surrounded herself with photographs of beach scenes — like Peter Doig's Surfer and Steve McQueen's Mees, After Evening Dip, New Years Day, 2002 — a reminder of the rolling, crashing landscape that was so familiar. A kindred spirit in his fascination with the coast, Clifford Ross captured his Hurricane Wave series along the East Hampton shore in the 1990s, going so far as to enter the surf neck-deep to get his shot. “Nature affects me as much as art,” Ross once said, a feeling Hummer Bradley would have shared, given she also collected another of the artist’s prints depicting Mount Sopris in the Rocky Mountains.
Darren Almond, Fullmoon@PoisonGlen, 2007. Color & Scale: The Estate of Martha Hummer Bradley.
The World Beyond
The diversity of the world — its landscapes, cities, and people — drove Hummer Bradley to experience as much as she could across many trips to Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America. In her early career as a photography editor at Bon Appétit magazine, Hummer Bradley traveled extensively to document the intersection of food, culture, and the arts in various corners of the world. It was a passion she pursued throughout her life, including a final journey to the Indian Himalayas on behalf of a charity she supported. Her collection captures that spirit in its own diversity, traversing from Damián Ortega in Brasilia and Sean Scully in Mallorca to Matthias Schaller in Venice and Darren Almond in Ireland and Scotland. Almond’s Fullmoon series depicts Earth’s epic vistas using long-exposure photography, appearing as though in misty daylight, yet created in moonlight. “With long exposures," he explained, "you can never see what you are shooting, but you are giving the landscape longer to express itself.” Hummer Bradley likewise expressed herself — and her immense appreciation for art and culture — through the medium of photography's particular way of reflecting the color and scale of the world.
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