#AllCoopedUp with Andrew & Stuart Douglas
I quickly became obsessed with Andrew Douglas and his beautiful family when I sold their Hancock Park home. They had stunning art throughout their house, but a series of large scale black and white photographs truly caught my eye, which were photos Andrew and his brother Stuart created over 25 years ago when they worked together in London. Today, 14 of their photos are featured in the National Portrait Gallery collection in London, and their works have been exhibited in galleries around the world. I’ve managed to convince Andrew to showcase their work at my shop, +COOP. Please come and check out the photographs of The Douglas Brothers, and if you are smitten, you can order prints for your home or office. Plus, read on to hear the brothers’ philosophy on work, fatherhood, and where all the British expats hang out in Los Angeles! - Jenna
What is your profession and how do you guys work together? Do you still work together today?
AD: We worked together in photography and then film for many years. I left to come to America to work, and Stuart stayed in England for 15 more years, then moved out to Los Angeles to pursue film. For the last 20 years we’ve been working more in film than photography. A few years ago we came together to create a documentary about soccer player Ronaldinho and we’re still working on that now.
Can you tell us a bit about the photographs of yours we have on display at +COOP?
AD: The craziest thing about working with Jenna is that she sells your house but then doesn’t want you to leave. She does this amazing job then says ‘don’t go!’ and you’re like… ‘but you just sold my house!’
The pictures that Jenna has are from our big photography phase. They are from our ‘vintage’ Douglas Brothers collection, and those are our greatest hits, I suppose. At the time we created them we were experimenting with finding our signature style. Even though we continue to take photographs, that was a very distinctive period for us. We were deliberately using older cameras and printing techniques and deliberately going back to using old cameras from the 1800’s.
How did you acquire those cameras?
AD: Some of the cameras were actually new replicas of old cameras. It was a folding wood camera. It’s in a wooden box and it folds out and the image is upside down. It has an abstract quality that was naturally given by those old cameras.
The pieces are so stunning, what makes you want to share them now?
AD: We always wanted to share them. After the National Portrait Gallery exposition in London, there was a lot of buzz about us. In 2018, we had an exposition in Los Angeles at the Kopeikin Gallery on La Cienega. The prints on display at +COOP are digital iris prints on fine art paper. When we were printing the old fashion way with silver nitrate prints, you could never get the photos that large. Jenna liked them so much, she wanted us to exhibit them at +COOP instead of bringing them to our next home. We love having our photography on display, it’s a fear of ours to create work that stays hidden under a blanket somewhere.
I know you just sold your house in LA -- where are you moving and what are your plans?
AD: We are moving to Connecticut, but in my mind we are moving to New York. My wife has family in Connecticut and our kids have cousins there, so they are moving to a place where they can plug straight into their cousins' vibes. We’ve been a bunch before, but never in the winter. That will be a huge shock, but the summers are so idyllic. Swimming in the sound and boating sounds like such an amazing childhood -- we are really going for our children.
What will you miss most about LA?
AD: I will miss Stuart and his family. Our families drifted apart for a while, and now we are so close. I’ll also miss the friends we made over the years. And crudely, I will miss the weather. Being a late-teen in England, I never dreamt about ending up in Connecticut, but I dreamt about being in California. It was never about being in America, it was about being in California, with surfers and the Grateful Dead and the lifestyle. And now I am going to Connecticut… so I had to climb over my dream a bit. I’m dragging my heels a bit, but my wife and kids are super excited.
How did being in California impact your work in terms of inspiration and aesthetic?
SD: I think it actually gave us a greater appreciation of the earlier work. In London it’s dark and gloomy and grey, and so was our work there. I think being out in LA for a long time, you get used to the sheen of Hollywood. The glitz and everything shiny, new, and bright. When we uncovered our old work again, it seemed fresh to be dark and gloomy in an environment that was all about light.
AD: It doesn't feel full of light, it feels full of a deeper emotion. In the sunshine it was hard to hang onto some of the things that drove us before. The work was literally brighter. And that was kind of hard. I would think you find the same images, and make the same images wherever you are. But that wasn’t the case at all -- you respond to your environment. So, those pictures feel like a bit of Europe in the middle of California.
Stuart, where in LA do you live and what do you like most about this city?
SD: I live in Beachwood Canyon, in the hills. My favorite place in London was an area called Hampstead, in North London, which is one of the more green areas. And Beachwood Canyon feels a bit like that. You can forget you're 5 minutes from a crazy Hollywood city, and when I'm in the hills I can see all the way to the ocean. I just have such a great appreciation for the area, and I’m always hiking too. They call Beachwood Canyon the ‘Britwood Canyon’ since there are so many Brits there. And ever since Harry Styles sang about the Beechwood Cafe, it’s been a lot busier.
AD: I first landed up in Los Feliz when I moved to LA, and I noticed all those little cafes were full of Brits. Everyone comes out here and wants to be in a modernist house up in the hills - it’s every Brit filmmaker’s first style. And then after 10 years you go ‘well I'm sick of driving up and down the hills. Now I want a garden.’ The British community in LA really finds itself. Even the famous ones. Gelson’s is just like London.
What are some of your favorite spots in LA?
SD: LACMA is good, and it’s getting even better. I also like the motorcycle place in Venice, Deus Ex Machina, which has motorcycles, clothes, and coffee. It was ‘the place’. Very west side.
AD: I turned Hancock Park into a village for myself. It was hard for me to go any further than Larchmont. I love Go Get Em Tiger, and I buy my t-shirts at Buck Mason. I bike everywhere, and I never go to the west side. During the pandemic, Hancock Park became the thoroughfare of walkers. It was kind of amazing. I can’t even remember what we did before the pandemic. I think once we went to Jon & Vinny’s… I think!
Did you pick up any new hobbies in the pandemic?
AD: I worry about work now.
SD: I play the piano, I walk. Really, we like working and taking pictures. That’s always been our hobby.
AD: Now that we are at the end of it, I wish I could learn to play the piano, speak Spanish, etc. I feel like I spent a lot of time with my children, which I normally wouldn't have done with work, and that was nice.
Do you plan on working together on any projects in the future?
AD: We don’t have anything at the moment except for the Ronaldinho film, which I think will be pretty good. We’ve been working mostly on our own in film and photography, so this is the first film in a while that I think will generate more work for us. Hopefully Djokavic will call asking for us to do the same. We love sports, so this would really be the dream for us.