Family reunions can sometimes be very boring, tiring, and exhausting. During one of his visits to his in-laws, photographer Nicholas Nixon had the idea to do something special, he saw his wife and her sisters as inspiration. None of them had any idea what the development would be in the next 4 decades.
Nixon was bored during a family dinner at his in-laws’ house. So he decided to do something about it. Not a bad idea…right? He asked his wife, Bebe, and her three sisters if it was okay to take a photo of them posing in the garden. Check out the rest of the stunning and poignant photos below.
The sisters didn’t notice that Nixon was just bored, so they just stood around and posed for the camera. They stood side by side, shoulders close together, while the photographer took the photos. As you can see, the photos turned out very nice and professional. Nixon, the sisters, and his wife really liked the photo and decided to repeat the same photo every year during their family celebration. The exact same filter should be used and they should be in the same arrangement. Basically, the first photo was taken in 1974, but unfortunately, nothing came of it, so they didn’t start documenting it until 1975.
An artistic element that recurs in this picture is time. In the photos of the younger years, we see that the sisters have remained virtually the same, but in later years notice This is, of course, logical. What also changes is the way they dress. You see that the style of clothing also changes over time.
This simple idea of Nixon’s nevertheless attracted the attention of a number of prominent artists and major cultural institutions. Nixon gained widespread recognition for his work through an exhibition of his work in New York at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). The name of the exhibition was ‘Nicholas Nixon; 40 Years of the Brown Sisters.’ Although he had begun taking the photos in 1974, he didn’t reveal any of it until 2014. It’s incredible what the rest of the photos look like.
The sisters were gearing up to ring in the new decade by taking another commemorative photo. The top song of the year in ’79 was My Sharona by The Knack, so they could’ve very well been listening to it as they posed. It’s so interesting to see that, even 40 years later, the outfits the women are wearing are still fashions you could see someone wearing today. It just goes to show that neither style nor sisterly love has changed all that much.
‘We are all aware that time passes, but we don’t always realize it when it happens,’ says Nixon. Everyone recognized a year had passed when they viewed the sisters’ portrait. The sisters appear to be standing a little closer to one other in some images than in others. They are standing close to each other in this particular year of 1985.
You can notice how the sisters are becoming older in this photo from 1991, which was shot 16 years after the first photo. Nonetheless, the viewers were kept in the dark about their personal lives, despite the fact that they were aware that BeBe had become a mother of multiple children. Viewers believe the sisters look great and haven’t aged too much over the years. They were born with good genes. Nixon seemed to have captured something tragic in this photograph.
The photo above is of 2013.
Nixon remarked that being adopted by this family was a dream come true for him as an only child. It is a loving and down-to-earth family. As an added bonus, the sisters’ friendship with Nixon was strengthened as a result of this initiative. ‘It’s like looking at my own sisters when I look back at maybe 30 images,’ Nixon says. ‘They are a part of my affection,’ says the narrator.
Unfortunately, the feminine aspect that emerged in 2006 was short-lived. The sisters returned to wearing their ‘regular’ outfits in 2007, opting for a modest neutral style. Because they didn’t use makeup, the audience could observe how the women’s faces had evolved over time.
The photo above is of 2014.
The Brown sisters and Nixon have been creating amazing photographs for almost 40 years. After 40 years, the sisters decided it was time to call it quits. This stunning image is the ideal finish to a lovely series and a piece of art. The sisters can look back on their paintings, and they, along with Nixon, are ecstatic about this stunning work of art!