08/23/2026
William Wegman’s large-scale color Polaroids occupy a singular place in both his career and the history of photography.
Beginning in the late 1970s, Wegman became one of the artists invited to work with Polaroid’s extraordinary 20 x 24-inch camera, a room-sized instrument capable of producing uniquely detailed, one-of-a-kind instant photographs. For Wegman, this was far more than a technical innovation. The scale, saturated color, immediacy, and physical presence of the Polaroid opened a new chapter in his practice.
The shift was especially significant following the arrival of Fay Ray in 1986. Wegman’s longstanding interest in photography, performance, humor, illusion, and conceptual play found an expansive new vocabulary in these monumental images. What had once been intimate, experimental photographic gestures could suddenly command the scale and visual authority of painting, advertising, and cinema—while retaining the spontaneity and singularity of an instant photograph.
In the broader history of photography, Wegman’s Polaroids are equally important. Instant photography had traditionally been associated with informality, experimentation, and the everyday. Wegman transformed that immediacy into a sophisticated fine-art language, demonstrating that an instant photograph could be conceptually rigorous, visually complex, and monumental in scale. His 20 x 24 Polaroids entered major museum collections, including those of MoMA and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, affirming the medium’s place within contemporary photographic history.
Our current exhibition brings together works that reveal the remarkable range of this period. On view through September 5th at 427 N Camden Drive, Beverly Hills.
Inquiries welcome, please DM us for more details.
William Wegman
Pictured: 1. 3 Out of Four, 1988, color Polaroid, 24 x 20 inches. 2. Splitting Image, 2005, black & white Polaroid, 24 x 20 inches. 3. Eye On, 1994, color Polaroid, 24 x 20 inches. 4. Vertical Lines, 2008, color Polaroid, 24 x 20 inches. 5. Trio of One, 2000, black & white Polaroid, 24 x 20 inches. 6. Installation view.
