William Wegman’s creative collaborators have always been up for a challenge. The legendary photographer has worked with a troupe of silver haired superstars since the 1970s, and much of his oeuvre has been defined by these muses. Of course, it’s not uncommon for artists to gravitate toward subjects who inspire them: Andy Warhol had Edie Sedgwick, and Diego Rivera had Frida Kahlo, but Wegman makes his magic with more unconventional models—his dogs.
Wegman, who was formally trained in painting at the Massachusetts College of Art, acquired his first Weimaraner while living in California. He named his new companion Man Ray, after the famed artist. Over the course of the dog's lifetime, he would go from being man’s best friend to “Man of the Year,” a title bestowed by the Village Voice in 1982, the year he died. Man Ray lived most of his life in the spotlight—from the moment his majestic, deadpan mug first appeared in Wegman's work, he turned himself into an art photography icon.
His successors have carried the torch. Over the years, Wegman’s cast of canines grew alongside his mainstream success. His photography has been exhibited in museums everywhere; his solo shows receive critical acclaim, and his work has been recreated in mosaic murals in a New York City subway station and on designer handbags for Acne Studios. His dogs have been magazine cover stars, leads in a TV commercial, models for fashion brands like Issey Miyake and Helmut Lang, and actors in Saturday Night Live sketches, on Sesame Street, and on Nickelodeon.
In the past year and a half, however, his current dogs—Flo and Topper—haven’t had much work. “When the pandemic hit we moved upstate away from my photo studio, and I concentrated on painting. I took a million photos of the dogs on my iPhone, but not as ‘art,’” Wegman says. That’s why, when furniture retailer West Elm reached out to him about collaborating on an upcoming campaign, he didn’t think twice. “The chance to come back and do something like that was kind of inspiring,” he says. Wegman calls it the “lazy man’s return” to what he loves to do—and what the dogs love, too. “And boy do they love to work.”
Before shooting, Wegman and his wife Christine had a Zoom call with West Elm to discuss the campaign. “The dogs are professionals, they sat there attentively listening,” Keith Pollock, the brand's creative senior vice president, recalls. “Bill and Christine would message us to say ‘Flo is getting excited for the shoot!’ and I believed it!”
Flo and Topper aren’t related to Wegman’s previous dogs, and it’s evident in their personalities. “Every Weimaraner is kind of gray and about the same size, but their personalities and even their looks have definitely changed,” he says. “I remember my dog Battie [daughter of Fay, mother of Chip, grandmother of Bobbin, great-grandmother of Penny], who is perhaps the most photographed of all of my dogs, had ears that tilted towards the lens, so it always looked like she had a hairdo, and it really created a whole different look. That was really a revelation,” he says. “With my dog Topper, on the other hand, he can look like a donkey unless he's photographed from a certain angle. And then he looks incredibly beautiful. So it’s all about angles. That’s what any photographer learns when they’re working with a model.”
One common thread among all of Wegman’s dogs, however, is their devotion to their careers. “They really like to be chosen,” Wegman says. “They like to be looked at—and dealt with. They like to work.”
While the West Elm shoot did not require elaborate styling or models or clothing, many of the final images look like the product of photo-shopping. Except they’re not. So—how does he get the dogs to pose? “A secret I’ve learned,” Wegman says, “is that if you put them on top of a piece of furniture, it’s much more complicated for them to get down and break that pose than to keep it.” For a photoshoot that seems to defy all logic, Wegman’s tactic makes perfect sense.
Each image also carries a magnetic charge. “Sometimes they look human, because they are kind of human, aren’t they?” Wegman says. “You have the whites of their eyes, which look at you, and it pulls on us, doesn’t it?” A dog’s eyes are windows to their soul, whether purebred Weimaraner or stray mutt—meaning there’s room for all pet owners to connect.
But the heart-warming allure of the hounds may also elicit a different response, one triggered by the anxious thought of furry dogs on clean couches. “My mother never let our family dog on the furniture,” Wegman says, “and I thought ‘God, what a terrible mistake! These dogs look great on furniture.’”
Pollock agrees. “Wegman has a long career of producing images that make you smile, and that’s exactly what this series does,” he says. “The furniture looks great—the fabrics are beautiful, and hopefully it will inspire some people to add a little color to their decorating.” Maybe they’ll let their dogs enjoy it, too.
Shop the new made-to-order upholstery options from West Elm collection here.
Lucia Tonelli is an Assistant Editor at Town & Country, where she writes about the royal family, culture, real estate, design, and more.
