All are welcome – painters and mountaineers, mystics and poets, ranchers and socialites, bombshells and Philistines, soldiers and activists, upstarts and old-timers – provided their stories lift the spirit, inspire the mind or provoke a new way of seeing the world. This engaging, democratic impulse is the through line for a series of art journals titled All-American, which the photographer and filmmaker Bruce Weber and his partner Nan Bush have been putting together for the past 13 years. Together with a small team, Bruce and Nan have set forth an eclectic, ever-evolving compendium of the American vernacular, an inquisitive take on overlooked aspects of the culture and lesser-known characters of note.

In many ways, the All-American series is a natural extension of Bruce’s work. The books share a similar emotional tenor and variety of content. As with his editorials and films, the structure is characterised by unexpected juxtapositions and diverse historical and cultural references. There is also a playful sense of freedom running through the series, the result of Bruce and Nan setting the editorial agenda on their own terms.

All-American was originally conceived in 2001 as a note- book-style compilation of the stories Bruce and Nan would tell their friends after months on the road. In the first two editions, Bruce’s photo-essays played a prominent role. But even in its earliest iterations, All-American referenced the past through generous incorporation of archival photographs from a variety of sources. Their motive for doing so was also partially a function of timing. As Bruce describes it, ‘For anyone who lived in America through 9/11, our sense of the past was abruptly changed. People in Europe and other parts of the world have a more present sense of life during times of conflict. The events of September 11th caused me to think about the past in a different way, more as a time of innocence.’

As the years progressed, the scope of All-American expanded to include more stories dedicated to artists, writers and photographers whom Bruce and Nan wanted to celebrate. The sense of creative reference and personal narrative in these books can be traced to Bruce’s experiences as a child grow- ing up in western Pennsylvania: ‘The first images that had a lasting impact on me were the snapshots of my mom and dad that hung all over our house. They were a strikingly handsome couple – my dad always had his shirt off and would carry my mom around the garden full of tulips.’ Profiles in All-American often draw from the personal archives of the subjects, giving each story a feeling of familiarity and intimacy not often found in art publications. The choice of subjects – with ample space and attention given to stories of everyday people in unique circumstances – also springs from one of Bruce’s formative artistic experiences: ‘As a young teenager, my mom and dad would drive me to Pittsburgh every Sunday to see foreign films at the Guild Theatre, which was right next door to Weinstein’s Deli (no relation to Harvey). I don’t know what my life would be like today without those films by Bergman and Antonioni, Fellini and Visconti.’ Though undeniably American, these books share a populist bent with the Italian neo-realists who inspired from early on.

In the latest edition, All-American Volume Thirteen: Born Ready, Bruce and Nan have continued to use the journal as a platform to showcase the work of young artists. Recent commissions by photographers like Deanna Templeton, John Scott, Sean Thomas and Poppy de Villeneuve have taken All-American in exciting and unexpected directions, while maintaining its essentially hopeful, humanist focus. In the following portfolio of images, selected by Dennis Freedman from volumes throughout the series, Bruce shares anecdotes from his perspective as editor.

“Elizabeth Taylor kept all these director’s chairs from her various films in the backyard of her home in Bel Air. In the middle sits Sugar, one of her favourite dogs, holding court. But that black cat on the right is a bit like Elizabeth, who had a mind of her own. I was so sad when these chairs went up for auction at Christie’s after her passing. Her dogs and cats really miss hanging out in them but not as much as they miss her.”

“Some of our greatest heroes are the journalists from newspapers and magazines who live on the road like we photographers do. They are so curious, always searching for and reporting on the ideas and events that will make a story big. One of our favourites was Mary McGrory, who in this photograph had just won the Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on the Watergate scandal for The Washington Star. I can imagine how she felt, with all those bottles of champagne – as I look at the most recent issue of All-American, I’m wondering if maybe we should all start drinking again.”

“We were in the middle of working on our first edition of All-American and were of course very insecure, as we still are today. Nan and I had just gotten an extraordinary new puppy and named him True Blue. I took this photograph at our place in the Adirondacks – Camp Longwood on Spitfire Lake. True had just come in from a swim, and as he sat there wrapped in the towel, his whiskers almost looked like a beard. I could picture what he would look like if he were an old man. That’s the great thing about dogs – they so often resemble the people they live with.”

“The story of Clementine Hunter and her paintings taught us a lesson – sometimes you have to have the courage to choose a subject not knowing if the story will live up to what you hope it will be. Clementine gave us faith in our deci- sions as editors from that point on. Her paintings evoke the title of the seventh volume of All-American: ‘Till I Get It Right. Clementine painted in that naïve style of Grandma Moses yet told her own story of life down south. I wish I’d had a chance to meet her.”

“I went to Detroit for the first time in 2006 with Dennis Freedman to do a story with Kate Moss for W. When we would pass by this house, we’d just smile and wish we lived there. It’s part of the Heidelberg Project, a group of abandoned buildings that has been redeveloped as a community art project. We chose this photograph as one of the opening images for All-American that year because it says a lot about hope. You could just tell that someone with a great sense of humour once lived there.”

“Liberty City is a small town west of Miami that celebrates Martin Luther King Jr Day with a huge parade. This photograph reminds me of those wonderful pictures of Diana Ross and the Supremes when they returned from Paris and paraded around the projects in Detroit wearing Dior. These ladies have lots of pride and attitude, and they sure got our attention.”

“We discovered William Kendall’s photographs while re- searching images of the great mountaineers, Gary Hemming and John Harlin. Kendall was a larger-than-life character – a physics professor at MIT, a Nobel Prize winner, a dedicated environmentalist and an avid climber and deep-sea diver. His photograph of an oncoming storm in the Andes of Peru epitomizes his quest of always taking the high road.”

“George Dureau, the New Orleans-based photographer, met me barefoot in front of his townhouse on Bienville Street in the French Quarter. He asked with his polite Southern drawl, ‘Are you sure you want to climb up all these stairs to see my photographs and paintings?’ Everything he showed us was accompanied by an eccentric 45-minute anecdote. When George showed us this photograph of Ernest Beasley, he told us about taking him watch to a wrestling competition. Ernest bought along this young boy who was always hanging out with him and always carried a needle and thread. We asked why the boy had tailoring tools, and George said, ‘Why, every time Ernest sat down, his pants would rip, and that boy would sew them back up.’ You can only hear this kind of story in New Orleans.”

“For last year’s issue, Bo Derek shared a series of photographs taken by her late husband John during a weekend getaway at Lake Powell, Utah. With the glove on her hand, this was from a group of pictures John took of Bo windsurfing in the nude. John always took pictures of the women he loved, and they often ended up in Playboy because the ladies often didn’t have any clothes on. Towards the end of his life, when John got sick, Bo and his other previous wives – Linda Evans and Ursula Andress – all sat together on his bed to let him know how much he was loved. I think both John and Bo have a lot to be thankful for in this photograph.”

“I visited Arlington National Cemetery the day after we photographed at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. As we drove into the cemetery, I met these lovely ladies who are part of a group called the Arlington Women. They attend funeral services at the cemetery as representatives of the various branches of the military and stand with grieving families who have lost their sons or daughters to the war. There are times when a family does not have enough money to attend the service in Washington DC, so these volunteers attend their services so that no one is buried alone. They are an incredibly kind and generous group of women.”

“For this story, Nile Rodgers – the talented musician and producer – invited us to his very elegant and eclectic apart- ment on the Upper West Side. Nile’s innovative arrangements for Madonna, David Bowie and Diana Ross are only half of his story. He wrote a bestselling autobiography that could so easily be adapted into a musical on Broadway or a top-10 movie. Nile is the essence of soul, and his generosity of spirit in helping young people around the world is unsurpassed. This photo was taken a couple of months be- fore the Daft Punk album Random Access Memories came out, which has created a whole new generation of Nile fans. It’s fitting that in this photo, Nile’s wearing a cape from the same store in Madrid that made them for Picasso.”

“We chose motocross as our sport for our 13th issue because so many small towns in America have a track or an event. It’s a real family-oriented sport. John Scott’s photograph resonates the thrill of being ‘born ready’ for anything and willing to take it on. I always loved that idea, in photographs that deal with sports, politics or even fashion.”

“These days, stories in magazines and journals – be they news or fashion – are so short. There’s so little space to go in-depth. I wanted do something different with All-American, to assign stories in the spirit of the great Life magazine editorials, like W Eugene Smith’s photographs of Albert Schweitzer in West Africa or his images of the country doctor in Colorado. Those stories have lived on all these years in the minds of the people who discovered them in their homes because they had the luxury of space. This year, we decided to hire Sean Thomas to return to his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska to photograph the senior prom. In seeing the pictures he brought back, I couldn’t help but think of Farm Boy, a book by Archie Lieberman that I’ve always admired.”

“Danny Trejo is one of our favorite actors – his new film with Robert Rodriguez, Machete Kills just came out. I took this portrait with his family last spring at their home in Arleta, California, just outside of LA. His beloved mother just recently passed away, and at her funeral, the photographs we took that day were prominently displayed. Those kinds of things sometime mean more for a photographer than any exhibition at a museum or gallery.”

“This is a painting of Trey Mourning, the son of Tracy and Alonzo Mourning. Tracy is a prominent philanthropist for education, and Alonzo is one of the greatest basketball players of all time – he used to play for the Miami Heat. I had never seen a painted portrait of a child like this – I thought it was interesting that the Nike sweatshirt had become the modern-day alternative to a tie and jacket.”