CHARLES BRITTIN

Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in 1928, photographer Charles Brittin is widely recognized for his intimate and hard-hitting images of Los Angeles from the 1950s and 60s. Within months of relocating to L.A. and becoming a student at Fairfax High School at the age of fifteen, Brittin proudly became a self-identifying Marxist and a card-carrying Communist. When he began using a camera in the 1950s his compassionate style and liberal political leanings led him naturally toward two significant social revolutions unfolding in the city. He captured the profound cultural shift embodied by the California Beat Generation and as the Beat movement gave way to civil unrest in the 1960s, Brittin took his camera to the frontlines of antiwar protests and political actions, producing raw, provocative images of the social change sweeping the country. "He was an absolutely critical figure in Los Angeles, because he was at the intersection of so many things that were happening," says Andrew Perchuk, Director of the Getty Research Institute. "He also was one of the great civil and political photographers of the age.”