The Photographs of Edward Weston

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The photographs of Edward Weston [by] Nancy Newhall

Author

Weston, Edward, 1886-1958 Date

1946 Publisher

The Museum of Modern Art Exhibition URL

www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2374 The Museum of Modern Art's exhibition history— from our founding in 1929 to the present—is available online. It includes exhibition catalogues, primary documents, installation views, and an index of participating artists.

MoMA

© 2017 The Museum of Modern Art

" __ -

LIBRAHY THE MUSEUSVf OF MODERN ART Received: ! MCHW£

EDWARD WESTON

THE PHOTOGRAPHSOF

PORTRAIT OF EDWARD WESTON BY ANSEL ADAMS, 1945

EDWARD WESTON NANCY

NEWH

THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish especially to thank Edward Weston for the many months of work and the understanding collabora tion, maintained across a continent, which he has contributed to every stage of this book and the exhibition it accompanies. To Beaumont Newhall, for his invaluable

aid in preparing

the text and the bibliography,

to Charis Wilson Weston, to whose writings and suggestions I am much indebted, permission to quote from his manuscript, I am particularly

grateful.

and to Jean Chariot for

I wish also to thank Mrs. Gladys

C.

Bolt, Mrs. Gladys Bronson Hart, Mrs. Rae Davis Knight, Mrs. Mary Weston Seaman and Mrs. Flora Chandler Weston for lending the chloride, platinum, and palladio

prints which represent Weston's earliest work. Nancy Newhall

TRUSTEESOF THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART Stephen C. Clark, Chairman of the Board; Henry Allen Moe, 1st Vice-Chairman; Sam A. Lewisohn, 2nd Vicechairman; John Hay Whitney, President; Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1st Vice-President; John E. Abbott, Executive Vice-President; Ranald H. Macdonald, Burden, Mrs. W. Murray

Crane, Walt

Mrs. Simon Guggenheim, Wallace H. McAlpin, William Beardsley

Treasurer; Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss, William A. M. Disney, Marshall

Field, Philip L. Goodwin,

A. Conger Goodyear,

K. Harrison, James W. Husted, Mrs. David M. Levy, Henry R. Luce, David

S. Paley, Mrs. E. B. Parkinson, Mrs. Charles S. Payson, Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.,

Ruml, James Thrall Soby, Edward

M. M. Warburg,

Mrs. George

Henry Warren,

Monroe

Wheeler. HONORARY

TRUSTEES: Frederic

Clay

Bartlett,

Frank Crowninshield,

Duncan Phillips, Paul J. Sachs,

Mrs. John S. Sheppard.

COPYRIGHT 1946, THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, 11 WEST 53 STREET,NEW YORK 19, N. Y., PRINTEDIN U.S.A.

MM A

EDWARD WESTON

In 1902 two letters passed between Burbank

Weston

and

Dr. Edward

his sixteen-year-old

son

Edward Henry, who was spending the summer on a farm. The first, from Dr. Weston, accompanied Bullseye

camera

and

contained

instructions

a on

carrying

the level rod on the Old Salt Lake Rail

road, he found mathematics in the hot desert sun overpowering.

Returning to Tropico he set up as a

photographer.

With

a postcard

camera

from house to house, photographing groups, funerals,

loading, standing with the light over one shoulder,

family

and so on. The second, full of Edward's thanks, ex

dozen. He fell in love and, full of responsibility,

citedly discussed his failures and a first success— a

began

seriously studying

photograph

tended

a "college

of the chickens.

From then on photography Edward;

absorbed

his interest in school dwindled.

magazine

reproduced

landscapes,

young When a

one of his sensitive little

such ambitions

painter or prizefighter

as wanting

to be a

vanished; he was definitely

solid darkroom cial portraitists,

however, was something else. He

men. Edward,

born in Highland

1886, and his beloved

a

He at

learning

a

technique and how not to pose a learning to make exact duplicate exposed

and lighted

negatives of his bosses. he married.

Four sons were

born:

Chandler, 1910; Brett, 1911; Neil, 1914; and Cole, 1919. In 1911 Weston built his own studio at Tropico.

Park, Illinois, in

sister Mary, were the first

his profession.

of photography,"

prints even from the poorly In 1909

A livelihood,

for a dollar

sitter. For a year or two he held jobs with commer

a photographer. came of generations of New England professional

anything

he went

babies, pets,

The customers who drifted

in were delighted;

even

children born out of Maine for more than two cen

with his 11 x 14 studio camera, he was often able

turies. His grandfather

to

before

taught at Bowdoin College

moving to the Midwest to head a female

seminary. His father, a general

practitioner,

found

time during his rounds to teach in a local college. His mother, rebelling her dying

before

shapes in chiffon scarves or vignetted

them away.

The soft-focus Verito lens helped, and he retouched

convinced they looked that well.

and living

holiday to visit

in Tropico,

Cali

He was particularly ing to capture

successful with children. Try

their activity,

1912, a 3 Va x4'/4

Graflex.

he bought,

his skylight

and immediately

subtleties of natural light absorbed

got a job with some surveyors,

punching stakes in orange

groves

intended

for

a boom-

to build.

Later,

around

The curtains obscuring

fornia. Enchanted by the place, he decided to stay,

nobody

were

so deftly and with such regard for actual modeling

cago, Edward went on a two-week

town railroad

they

that his patrons, unconscious of any change, were

After three dull years as an errand boy in Chi now married

exposures

left it as

become a business man.

Mary,

several

should escape and

at the family tradition,

wish that Edward

make

aware of it. Posing by suggestion, he hid ungainly

and sunny windows

came down; the him. "I have a

room full of corners — bright corners, dark corners, alcoves! An endless change takes place daily

as

5

>

the sun shifts from one window to another ... backgrounds

have been discarded

for special decorative * 1

except

All those

effects, which are brought

He worked outdoors as well — his baby sons in Ruth St. Denis in Japanese costume

In November

he went East to say goodby

to

whose husband was now with the steel in

dustry in Ohio. The Armco plant, with its rows of giant smoke stacks, excited Weston to a series of

standing in a shimmer of light and space with one

photographs

spot of brilliant sun slanting across her cheek. From

mistakably

in which his own vision emerges un (p. 11). Mary urged him to go to New

1914 to 1917 he received a shower of honors. Com

York and see the legendary

mercial

and

York, with his mind full of the forms and rhythms of

trophies

and asked him to demonstrate.

professional

societies awarded

him

Pictorial

industrial

America,

masters there. In New

he haunted

the bridges

and

salons in New York, London, Toronto, Boston, Phila

rode endlessly on the busses, looking

delphia,

towering city. Articles on Stieglitz by Paul Rosenfeld

elected

him to membership.

Many

one-

and Herbert

acclaim.

why he was dissatisfied with his own work; actual

with himself, with his hazy Whistlerian anese approach.

he first saw modern painting; introduced

radical

him to contemporary

literature. frowned;

and Jap

At the 1915 San Francisco Fair

His conservative

new friends

thought,

friends

and

music, in-laws

instead of settling down as a successful

man and father he began to sport a velvet jacket

Seligmann had helped

up at the

man shows at schools and clubs brought him further But he was not content. Something was wrong —

contact with Stieglitz though

him discover

left him rather

much moved

by

the

bewildered,

photographs

of

O'Keeflfe. His greatest enthusiasm was evoked by the clear structure of Charles Sheeler's architectural photographs. In August, 1923, he sailed for Mexico. With Tina, whom he had taught to photograph, portrait

studio in Mexico

he opened a

City. His exhibition

"The Aztec Land" in October

tions. His work was changing.

types of industrial themes, sculptural fragments of were vio

lently asymmetrical. An attic provided semi-abstract

nudes, highly individual temporary

contained

at

and a cape. He ceased to send to pictorial exhibi By 1920 the Japanese arrangements

2

Mexico. Mary,

out when needed." the garden,

ence for Weston. He decided he would go to live in

portraits,

life. The Mexican

palladio-

people

in con

artists immediately

themes of angular lights and shadows. By accident

accepted

he discovered the extreme closeup; focusing on a

tense and understanding

nude, he saw, in the ground glass, forms of breast

intensity with which Latins express themselves has

and shoulder so exciting that he forgot his custom

keyed me to high pitch, yet viewing

ers. Groping,

the wall day after

with occasional flashes of insight, he

was still trying to impose his "artistic"

personality

Modotti

the

dark

and

exciting

Tina

took some of Weston's personal work to

Mexico and exhibited

it at the Academia de Bellas

self-scrutiny

and

day has depressed

me. I see

startlingly

Mexican

Renaissance— were

enthu

siastic. What is more they bought — a new experito bibliography,

p. 35.

growth.

Unable

in his halting he

took them out into the strong sunlight and watched in his Graflex

6

my work on

Spanish to control his sitters by conversation,

Artes. Her friends — Rivera, Siqueiros, the artists of

refer

. . . The

too clearly that I have often failed."

the surging

* Numbers

had such in

appreciation.

The three years in Mexico were years of ruthless

on his subject matter. Then, in 1922,

him. "I have never before

for

the spontaneous

sky resulted — the keen-squinting at target

moment. A

vivid series of heroic heads against the Senator

practice, Rose Covarrubias

Galvan

smiling, with

2

2

2

the sun in her downcast lashes. Commenting on the

physical

head

utmost exactness: the rough is rough, the smooth is

of Guadalupe

de Rivera (p. 13), Weston

wrote (1924): "I am only now reaching ment in photography

an attain

quality — of things is rendered

smooth, flesh is alive, stone is hard. The things have

that in my ego of several

a definite proportion

in a clearly defined distance one from the other . . .

years

ago

I thought

I had

It will

be

necessary

to

reached

destroy,

long

ago.

unlearn,

and

and weight and are placed

In a word, the beauty which these photographs Weston's possess is photographic

rebuild." Between

with the

sittings — desperately

poor,

he

was

of

beauty!"'

With Tina and Brett, Weston traveled

through

much confined to the studio for fear of losing a

almost unknown regions photographing

customer — he worked

for Anita Brenner's Idols Behind Altars 6 and bold

Mexican

toys,

searchingly

painted

gourds,

with still life — jugs— arranging

details of cloud and maguey

sculpture

for himself. But he

them again and again in new lights, new relations.

was not and never could be Mexican; the time had

Within the courtyard,

come for him to return home.

from the rooftop,

whenever

he could get away, he was at work with a more powerful

and

articulate

forms of Mexico;

clarity

on the massive

the vast landscapes,

pyramids (p. 12), the people-sprinkled

the huge patterns of

His friends important

as yet unpublished

More even than to the mental stimulation of such

them an

history of the Mexican

plastic

to be visited,

vocabulary

Ren

at the time when the

of the Renaissance was still

friends as Diego Rivera, Weston responded to "the

tender and amenable

proximity

Weston,

to a primitive race. I had known nothing

He had brought

aissance, wrote recently: "It was the good fortune of Mexico

the little towns.

grieved.

stimulus and vision. Jean Chariot, in an

to suggestions, by Edward

one of the authentic

masters that

the

of simple peasant people. I have been refreshed

United States has bred. . . . Weston photographs

by their elemental expression. I have felt the soil."

illustrated in terms of today

Close to them, confusions fell

ity of representational

away.

Eliminating

the belief in the valid

art . . . cleansed ...

of its

every illusion, convention, process or device which

Victorian connotations ...

impeded

of substance, weight, tactile surface and biological

creation, he concentrated

tials. "Give I create.

me peace

on vital essen

and an hour's time

and

Emotional heights are easily obtained,

He dealt with problems

thrusts that laid bare the roots of Mexican culture. When Rivera was painting The Day of the Dead in

peace and time are not . . . One should be able to

the City in the second court of the Ministry

produce

talked about Weston. I advanced

significant

work

365

days

a year.

To

his work was precious for us in that it delineated

create should be as simple as to breathe." In 1925 he went to California Contact

with

his native

rhythms, more complex and unposed 8x10

land

for six months.

produced

sharper

motifs — industrials

again,

portraits. Returning to Mexico

with his son Brett, he photographed

we

the opinion that

with a stronger

limitations

of our craft

forbidden

forever

and staked

optical

the plots

to the brush. But Rivera, busily

imitating the wood graining on the back of a chair, answered path

to

that

in his opinion

a better

feeling for light and texture the markets, the wall

result, of painting."

paintings outside native bars (p. 14), Dr. Atl stand

Back in Glendale,

way

of

Weston seeing,

blazed and,

Weston missed Mexico

a

as a and

ing beside a scribbled wall. Reviewing the Weston-

was at first unable to work. Then, in the studio of

Modotti

show at

the painter

wrote,

"In Weston's photographs, the texture — the

Guadalajara,

1925,

Siqueiros

Henrietta

Shore, he picked

up some

shells of which she had been making some semi7

abstract studies. His mind was suddenly filled

the dynamic forces of growth, the vital forms and lucent surfaces of shells, fruits, vegetables.

twentieth

for days on a single form in various

they found

him the

in the

peer

of

Picasso, Matisse, Brancusi, and Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1932 Merle Armitage

book of thirty-nine reproductions, The Art of Edward

for life with photographic

present objectively

the texture,

beauty —

rhythm, form

in

Weston.

brought out a handsome

One-man shows swept spontaneously from

or evasion in spirit or

Berlin to Shanghai, from Mexico to Vancouver. Un

technique — to record the quintessence of the object

aided, with neither agent, group, nor institution to

or element before

back him, Weston responded

my lens, rather than an inter

pretation, a superficial phase or passing mood . . ."

quests with

He began to free the forms in space. One superb

between 1921 and 1945.

came

most thoroughly

alive

within the

more

than

to innumerable

seventy

different

re

shows

With his first New York show, composed entirely

shimmering darkness of a tin funnel (p. 18). At the

of glossy prints — the shells and rocks demanded

same time, with the same feeling: "I am also pho

brilliance and clarity beyond the bronze tones and

tographing invariably from

a dancer in the nude ...

I find myself

making exposures during the transition

one

position

to

the

next — the

strongest

moment."

matte surface of the palladiotype cept stood forth approach:

clear

photographer,

at seventeen a remarkable

he opened a studio in San Francisco.

Cities increasingly oppressed him; in 1929 he wel

— Weston's con

and mature.

"This is the

one must prevision and feel, before ex

released coincident with the shutter's release. There is no substitute for realized,

amazement

felt,

significance

at the time of exposure. Developing

and

comed a chance to move to Carmel among the

printing

become but a careful carrying

Monterey coast mountains. Here he discovered what

original

conception . . . "

his friend

cameras: an 8 x 10 view camera and a Graflexfor

Robinson Jeffers has described

strange, introverted,

and storm-twisted

Point Lobos." He photographed

as "the

beauty

of

the writhing silver

roots of cypresses and the strangling starred

a

posure, the finished print. . . . The creative force is

With Brett, already

3

century;

Weston one

artists in America,

my feeling

pepper

2

Often

They declared

nuances of natural light, seeking "to express clearly

nature without subterfuge

2

strange, stark beauty." of the most significant

he worked

5

with

kelp, the

succulents and monumental eroded

rocks

portraits.

on of the

He had, and has, two

There is one background,

occasionally

used behind a sitter. Settling his friends or clients somewhere, indoors or out, where the light is favor able,

he lets them become themselves while he

(p. 19), incandescent salt pools and winged skele

watches fleeting expressions and gestures. He uses

tons of pelicans. Orozco, passing through Carmel in

one film, one paper. He tray-develops

his negatives

1930, was so moved by these transcendent images

in pyro-soda,

each one to

that he arranged

the exact degree of delicacy or density he wants.

Weston's first New York one-man

Working

show that fall. In 1927 the reaction to the first shells was sur

frame,

by inspection, bringing

under an overhead

bulb with a printing

he makes only contact prints, dodging

in

prise and dismay. Many people, including Rivera,

areas beyond the scale of paper so deftly that the

thought them phallic. As the closeups grew more

balance

subtle and powerful they struck beholders with the

amidol, scrupulously fixed and washed, more than

force

from

half of the first prints from his negatives are exhi

and

bition quality. These prints are then drymounted on

yield

white boards and spotted. This is technique at its

of

a

revelation.

Sober

reviewers

Seattle to Boston discovered they were "art" prattled

8

of

"miracles,"

"lowly

things that

of

light

is never

upset.

Developed

in

most basic and direct;

the result of decades

of

Van Dyke called a meeting

and proposed Group f.64* — f.64 being one of the

experience, its emphasis is entirely on vision. In his professional work he was still compelled to

smaller shutter stops and therefore

associated with

negatives onto

sharp focus. Lloyd Rollins, the new director of the

film with the old Verito lens stopped down

M. H. de Young Museum in San Francisco, strongly

use evasions, enlarging the Graflex 8x10

night in 1932 Willard

just short of sharp. Printing the results on matte

encouraged

paper

either eliminated

ural exhibition in the fall of 1932. The most ardent

traces

of

his almost

retouching or hid the last invisible

pencil

work.

This

the nascent group and held its inaug

protagonists,

Adams and Van Dyke, both opened

division between personal and professional stand-

galleries,

the

press, and

ards

started a salon of "pure photography."

With some

bothered

him. He campaigned

among

his

wrote

vigorously

for

sitters. More and more people discovered that the

of their pronouncements Weston could not agree.

reality

Gently, he withdrew. As an active spearhead, Group

of one's own face,

quick with thought completed

worn into character,

and feeling,

the composition

by mobile hands, has a curiously excit

ing quality.

Friends liked the little prints and the

unostentatious way they fitted

into contemporary

living. By 1934 he could at last hang out a sign:

f.64 lasted only a year or two; as the violent peak of a great

contemporary

movement, its influence

still persists. In the early

1930s Weston

was alarming

his

friends by breaking away from the extreme closeup, doing clouds and villages in New Mexico, perspec

"Unretouched Portraits.'' To thousands of photographers

Weston was be

tives of a lettuce

ranch in Salinas, the massive

to his friends a sanctuary as

naked hills of the Big Sur. Then came, in 1936, a

well. To live more freely and simply than Thoreau,

classic and majestic series. From their new studio

to work with a bare technique and produce bril

in Santa Monica

coming a challenge;

Edward

and Brett worked

liantly, to walk free, without help or compromise —

gether among the vast, wind-rippled

these things are not easily achieved in the cluttered

Oceano

and frantic twentieth century.

shadow to stand dazzling

His isolation was ending. Brett was changing from a prodigy to

share

to a co-worker the

stimulating

and others were coming companionship:

Ansel

and

to

sand dunes at

which rose from deep swirls of morning

sank

again,

and sculptural at noon,

bright-crested,

(p. 22). Photographing

into

darkness

across from one bank to

another, with the sun along the same axis as his

Adams, whom they met as a pianist with some prom

camera, Weston made a series of nudes in which

ising but immature photographs;

a subtle line of shadow outlines the figure, round

Willard

Van Dyke,

who left his filling station for two weeks to study

ing the living skin away from the harsh brilliance

with Weston. These young photographers,

of the sand (p. 20).

with creative matter, groping

problems,

discovering

wrestling

new subject

for their own approaches,

began

The old longing to be free of clients led Weston to apply

for a Guggenheim

Fellowship "to make

to form a group around Weston. The more they

a series of photographic

grew away from Pictorialism the more intolerable

In 1937 he became the first photographer

they found it that there should exist a system which

this award.

put a premium on the obvious and the sentimental

able to concentrate

After

documents of the West."

twenty-six

to receive

years he was at last

on his personal

work alone.

and consistently squeezed any honest or original thought into decadent

impressionistic formulae.

The idea of organizing

occurred to them. One

*The charier members of Group f.64 were: Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunning ham, John Paul Edwards, Sonia Noskowiak, Henry Swift, Willard Van Dyke, Edward Weston. Later members: Dorothea Lange, William Simpson, Peter Stackpole. Associates: Preston Holder, Consuela Kanaga, Alma Lavenson, Brett Weston.

9

8

He

wanted

to

see

he considered

4

to birth

same

by his own

has

planning for

a fraction

of the $2000

a maximum

canned

foods

slow drives coastal

of

During

into

an image

the

span

savage

over

momentarily

Elemental

and

littered

forces

are

enormous a

the true

brittle

protago

but even of the decay In 1938 simple

built

by Neil

darkroom

year

made

and

on

did

a great

Returning ered the

deal;

rather

starred

because

technical

constitutes

he longed

with

The stream

most of

negatives

duplicates

an

of vision. Weston

reluctantly

over

were

such as waves

discarded severe

or

they

or esthetic astonishing felt he had

pools,

succulents

of visitors

fog and

began

among dark again.

and

short

regulations

a beloved

Pearl joined

With

shoes,

the

rationing

swept Army.

confined

he began

photo

Capturing

their an

photographic

humor and love of the characterized

his work,

nudes,

flowers, satiric

gas titles

Defense,

com masks,

such

as

and Exposition

Symmetry.

On March

24,

letter

1946,

Weston

of growth

he wrote,

omnivorous

surges with new themes. fresh

by

The

watch

a series of startling

houses — with

him, the long vista

production,

the cities.

Harbor.

a formidable

We Fight For, Civilian

of Dynamic

A

an 8 x 10 produced

the robust

producing

of

houses.

civilian

of cats.

that have always

binations — old

What

gas

with

series — and

toothbrushes,

beauty

sons were

Here

tribe

sinuous independence

grotesque

and

occupied

and

he

strength

him in.

by

to Carmel,

Lobos

he also began

earth;

plantation

to wall

to his backyard.

achievement.

the civili

houses. In Louisiana

ruins of

cut

the

East Coast

everywhere,

All Edward's

amusing

During

light and smoke obscures

was

war.

but to cre

in a quieter

was

the

a recent

to go on.

to Lobos, he discov

new themes — surf and tide headlands

with cypresses.

10

series

in variety

only

house,

his

Leaves

weary,

on the decay

it seemed

returned

graphing

down

of

through

up the

into

Weston

In the bare

flowers

vision.

ers on the headlands.

Security

spent

hundred

trip

granite,

redwood

looking

objects

were

Weston's

The

achievement learned

little

Weston

The

moving few

meet

standards.

the

fifteen

his travels.

Very

not

of

the

of unpredictable cattle.

was extended.

the Pacific,

printing

of

The

barns

sepulchers,

Westons

skeletons

erode

alone

on a mountainside

Point Lobos the

not

of man's works.

the Fellowship

and

being,

beauty

pro

with

against

Whitman's

and

rooted

in old

It concerns

with

more

photograph

in industry

intensely

of gray

or a human

strange

strongly

York

duce

a flower

he worked swamps,

to

of Walt

and the people

power

In New

vision — forces which irresistibly

make

more

miasma

nists in Weston's

and

zation

to coalesce

the

asked

the South

the land

still standing

West.

ages

and

to Whitman's

through

he found

the

began

American

journey

campfires,

deep-

and

(p. 29),

His aim was not to illustrate

saw blatant

miles,

more rocks

ferns

an edition

a counterpoint

the

snow and

the

he was

for

travel,

35,000

emotions

wife,

to the last cent and

heat, mountain

geological

earth

civilization.

and of the

of

of Grass.

journey — the

among

In 1941

ate

them on the

(p. 28).

is limited

to create.

down

those

house,

garden

instant,

that

together

desert

his

America

his second

of

grant

stewed

thoughts

West log

he con

photographed

8 x 10, sunning

executing

photography

through

fogs.

rooted

the the

not in

Weston the

and

to see and

and

written

he felt,

of what

spontaneous

what

challenge:

He may

realizing

ability

In California Charis,

meet

In most mediums,

bring

the

now

by his process.

The photographer,

in almost only

could

seeing."

is retarded

a lifetime ceives.

he

greatest

"mass-production the artist

if

photography's

will

focuses

"I am seeker."

be sixty.

a prolific, His

For

on today;

mass-

latest

All the signs point

work

towards

horizons. Nancy

in

Newhall

ARMCO,

OHIO,

1922

PIRAMIDE DEL SOL, MEXICO, 1923

GUADALUPE DE RIVERA, MEXICO, D. F., 1924

4W:

-

•

I

s* m

;

"

W$M

LAS MEJORESHACIENDAS

PULQUERIA,

MEXICO,

D. F„ 1926

'*i

NUDE, MEXICO, 1925

-"

v
.

^^SfStPSti t' ?••*••• •..•;;x ''v^f^fc^'^'

vm *W(m%. it .#.

DEATH VALLEY,

1938

mJL tf: jkLs~+4%A. #*_*:

YOSEMITE, 1938

DETAIL, ABANDONED CAR, MOJAVE DESERT,1937

GHOST TOWN, RHYOLITE, NEVADA, 1938

WRECKED CAR ON BEACH, NORTH COAST, CALIFORNIA, 1939

DANCER, 1939

ZOHMAH AND JEAN CHARLOT, POINT LOBOS, 1939

ROOFTOP PORTRAIT, NEW YORK, 1941

BELLEGROVE, LOUISIANA, 1941

V

,

PELICAN, POINT LOBOS, 1942

.,...;f

, |J

7 A.M., PACIFIC WAR TIME, 1945

BRIEF CHRONOLOGY

1926

Mexico:

photographed

through

1886

Born March

24, Highland

Park, Illinois, of New England 1927

descent. 1902

First photographs, in Chicago

with Bullseye camera

markets,

photographing

Left high

1928

school;

Wholesale

worked

for

Marshall

three years. Continued

Field

and

landscapes,

clouds, etc. for himself. November: (formerly

To California surveyors cided

for holiday;

on railroads

to become

decided

started

by

camera,

photographing

to stay. Worked

in Los Angeles

professional

house-to-house

Co.

Began series of extreme

closeups: shells, vegetables,

Began series of California

De

with

motifs: Mojave

Attended

printer 1909

"college

for commercial

Married

Flora

May

born: Chandler, 1911

of

pets, funerals,

photography";

portraitists Chandler,

worked

as

30.

own studio in Tropico,

Commercial

and Pictorial

and prizes, demonstrated

techniques

1932

Japanese

and Whistlerian

1919-1921

Ceased

associations.

1922

March:

one-man

received.

with abstract

arranged

one-man

Formation

City

to live in Mexico. Ohio;

met Stieglitz,

August: to Mexico.

Return to larger

by

Strand,

and

Pictorial

motifs: unusual

1934

f. 64; first group

Tina Modotti, then Mexico

Siqueiros,

accepted

etc.;

motifs: landscapes, and Monterey

in establishing

portrait

Began

posed portraits; 1925

contact

1936

Oceano

1937

First photographer

34

3 or 4

Works

of

Art

Freed

Traveled Mexico,

portrait

standards

all portraits

in pro are unre-

studio with Brett.

to be awarded from

portrait

and photographed Nevada,

Fellowship

Oregon,

extended.

most of year

contributor

1939

printing

a Guggenheim

business

for

in California,

Fel

first

time.

Arizona,

New

Washington.

Married

Charis

Wilson

April

24.

house built by third son, Neil. Spent 1500 negatives.

later

motifs:

un-

8x10

unposed

New Point Lobos series; new series of 8 x 10 portraits in landscape.

of Mexican

for 6 months; studio in San Fran Industrials;

personal

series: dunes, nudes.

lowship.

1938

opened

as vital

of important

cisco with Johan Hagemeyer. portraits.

Employed

Public

prints.

To Santa Monica;

November:

closeups of still life, trees, rocks, clouds.

Returned to California

pub

City. Met Rivera,

Renaissance. Massive realization

statements

at de

Armitage

clouds, architecture

area.

work; henceforth

1935

visited

forms. 1924-1925

October-

exhibition

Merle

U. S. Government

Succeeded fessional

enthusiastically October:

Sheeler.

With

Chariot,

Weston's first

Studios,

Project.

touched

first industrials.

studio, first in Tacubaya,

to Mexican

sec

Film und Foto,

and installed Delphic

San Francisco.

Returned to Carmel; 1923

Contributed

American

Exhibition

show,

of Group

Museum,

months

of

of nudes and faces.

show in Mexico

Decided

York;

shows.

by exhibition

commercial

fragments

sister in Middletown, to New

intensified

with

Experimented

angles and lightings,

in Carmel;

in New Mexico

at 1915 San Francisco Fair.

to exhibit

Werkbund

organized

motifs.

Discontent with own direction painting

awards

salons with

Elected to London Salon, 1917. Many one-man

modern

First Point Lobos series rocks, kelp.

lished Art of Edward Weston.

professional

societies. Won medals and honors in Pictorial

Deutsche

York

Young

California.

before

Brett.

November.

Four sons

success: received

Orozco New

in Los Angeles. January

with

of cypresses,

etc.

1933 1914-1917

Desert, trees,

studio with second

Stuttgart.

1910; Brett, 1911; Neil, 1914; Cole, 1919.

Built and opened

portrait

and, with Steichen,

tion of

postcard

studio

closeups

foreword

photographer;

canvassing

To Carmel; begun:

1930 1908-1911

also

son, Brett.

with

and Nevada.

portrait

babies,

returned

Tropico).

to photograph. 1929

1906

Traveled

on commission,

to Glendale

etc. To San Francisco, opening 1903

pulquerias.

sculpture

nudes in motion.

given by father,

parks.

country

1904

California

1941

Traveled graphing

and the West published. through

South and

for an edition

Trip cut short by Pearl Harbor 1942-1945

Defense

activities.

satires, cats, portraits,

along

East Coast

of Whitman's attack;

returned

Photographed

photo

Leaves of Grass.

in

and nudes in landscape.

to Carmel. backyard:

ONE-MAN EXHIBITIONS 1921-1946

1934

STOCKTON, MEL:

Calif.:

Gelber-Lilienthal Note:

Exhibitions

for

which documentation

is incomplete,

1935

such

as those prior to 1921 and those in Germany and Japan, are not 1936

LOS ANGELES: Shaku-Do-Sha. ifornia

Camera

SAN FRANCISCO:

1937

Cal

MEXICO

CITY:

Academia

1923

MEXICO

CITY: "The Aztec Land."

1924

MEXICO

CITY:

1939 Museo

del

Estado.

Aztec SAN

Land."

GUADALAJARA:

FRANCISCO:

Gumps

(with

Museo

del

(with

Tina

Estado

;*

University

Los Angeles

of

California;*

Museum.*

SEATTLE:

SAN FRANCISCO:

Museum.

1929

MONTEREY: Courvoisier

Adobe

HOLLYWOOD:

Braxton

phic Studios.

CARMEL:

duplicate

New

of Library.

BOSTON:

Grace

York

FRANCISCO:

Home's

M.

Galerie

ST. LOUIS: of

Galleries.

Del

Arts.

Gallery.

Garden.

Fine CAR

(retrospective).

Young

Naert.

Memorial

Traveling

1944

NORMAN:

1946

NEW

* With

DENVER:

Art

Gallery.

house. 1933

Museum.

Studios.

CARMEL.

PALO

ALTO:

Scripps College.

LAKEVILLE, Conn.:

Denny-Watrous

MADISON:

Gallery;

Wisconsin

Brockhurst"

Chicago.

University

of Nebraska. Renaissance

SAN FRANCISCO:

NEW YORK:

Union.

Arts

Galleries;

Art

Play

Dyke's

"683

Stanford

School.

International

Robinson

Gate

Office

University

Taylor

SAN FRAN

Exposition.

Photo-League

exhibition:

(portraits). of War

Information.

of Oklahoma.

YORK: The Museum of Modern

Art.

Brett Weston.

ture 14nol65:354-6 STATEMENT Weston,

exhibition:

Hotchkiss

SHANGHAI:

LINCOLN:

Hall of State Museum.

By Edward Weston

SAN

Community

Willard

Van

SACRAMENTO: SPRINGS:

Reprinted

il Photo Minia

S 1917.

in exhibition

catalog,

Edward

Weston — Brett

Los Angeles Museum, 1927. in Spanish, Forma (Mexico)

1928,

pl7.

of Arts.

CLAREMONT:

Delphic

Gallery.

COLORADO

1 [LETTER DESCRIBING PORTRAIT TECHNIQUE]

2 1932

HOLLYWOOD:

SELECTEDBIBLIOGRAPHY

Museum.

Traveling

Gallery.

Club. of Art.

Central

SAN DIEGO:

Botanical

1942

also,

Fine

Atkins and Torrey

de

Jean

Federation

YORK: Gallery;

Museum

Gallery

H.

NEW

show.

Vickery,

Denny-Watrous

PARIS:

Gallery.

BROOKLYN:

FRANCISCO:

American

SAN

Denny-Watrous

HOUSTON:

Arts Gallery. MEL:

Shop.

Little Gallery.

SAN FRANCISCO: 1931

Gift

BEVERLY

Camera

ST. PAUL: Gallery

Kuh

Gallery.

YORK:

Society.

Shop.

DALLAS:

NEW

Arts

Sternberg-Davis

Golden

Put-

State College.

NEWARK:

Art Gallery. Katharine

Art

1941

HOLLYWOOD:

Society.

Champlin.

Camera

TUCSON:

Fine

East West Gallery.*

Bar-

Museum of Art (retro

California

Photographic

Harry

CISCO:

1928

Public

DIEGO:

Crocker

Society.

1930

SAN

Shaku-DoArts

Gallery.

PHILADELPHIA: Photographic

Morgan 1940

LOS ANGELES: Sha

SAN JOSE:

VANCOUVER:

Modotti). 1927

HOLLYWOOD:

SAN FRANCISCO:

CHICAGO:

GUADALAJARA.

Gallery.

NEW YORK: Nierendorf

HILLS:

Johan Hagemeyer). 1925

CAR

FRANCISCO:

LOS ANGELES: Jake Zeitlin Gallery.*

spective).

de Bellas Aries. 1938

"The

Galleries.

SAN

Gallery.

CARMEL: Denny-Watrous

zell Gallery.

Club.

1922

Memorial

Gallery.

bieri and Price (portraits).*

included. 1921

Hoggin

Denny-Watrous

Theatre.

bition catalog

Art 3no2:29-36

Ag 1928.

il In Deutsche Werkbund

Film und Foto, Stuttgart,

exhi

1929, pl3-14.

STATEMENT, il The San Franciscan D 1930 p22-23. Reprinted with il Experimental Cinema, no 3:13-15 1931. PHOTOGRAPHY— 20 Jy 1930.

NOT PICTORIAL, il Camera

Craft 37:313-

OAKLAND: (retrospective).

CHICAGO: Society,

FROM MY DAY BOOK, il Creative AMERIKA UND FOTOGRAFIE.

Increase

University

Ansel Adams Gallery.

of

STATEMENT in exhibition Weston, Reprinted,

catalog,

Photography

[by] Edward

Delphic Studios, N Y, 1932. Hamsa no 5:76

PHOTOGRAPHY.

1932.

Pasadena,

Esto Publ Co, 1934 (Enjoy Your

Museum series).

35

ARTICLES with il in Camera

3-9);

PURIST (Ja

;

p56-64,

P

Craft,

v 46 1939:

PHOTOGRAPHING

99-105);

LIGHT

VS

WHAT IS PHOTOGRAPHIC

LIGHTING

(My

ART.

Encyclopedia

PHOTOGRAPHY,

8:2935-40

D 1942.

SEEING

BULLIET, C. J. Photos make a bid to be ranked

art. il Chicago

Daily News S 16 1933.

THIRTY-

449-60).

Britannica

THE CARMEL CYMBAL Ap 17 1935. Edward Weston special number. Statements Una Jeffers, Henrietta Shore, Lincoln Steffens

17:796-9

CHARLOT, JEAN. Edward

Weston.

by Johan Hagemeyer, and others.

Calif

Arts & Arch 57no4:

20 Ap 1940.

PORTRAIT

il

PHOTOGRAPHICALLY,

9:3200-06

IS A (F-Mr

p197-205)

BEAUTY? (Je p247-55);

FIVE YEARS OF PORTRAITURE (S-0 p399-408, PHOTOGRAPHIC 1941.

WHAT

CALIFORNIA

Complete

il

Photographer

Complete

Photographer

Ja 1943.

Reprnted from the author's Art from the Mayans to Disney, N Y & London, Sheed and Ward, 1939. Revision of material published in exhibition catalog Edward Weston, 100 Photographs, Increase Robinson Galleries, Chicago, 1933 and in Bibl no 5.

DELPHIC STUDIOS, N Y. Exhibition Weston, 1930.

of photographs:

Edward

Catalog with foreword by Laurence Bass-Becking.

By EdwardWeston

and Charis Wilson Weston

DENNY-WATROUS photographer.

CALIFORNIA

AND THE WEST. N Y, Duell, Sloan and Pearce,

GALLERY,

CARMEL

Edward

Weston,

1931.

Exhibition catalog with excerpts from press notices.

1940. 127p, 96 plates. HALLIDAY, F. H. Edward OF THE WEST, il U S Camera

1940 p37-55.

HAZ, NICHOLAS.

Articles,

Catalogs,

Books about

ADAMS, ANSEL. Photography.

Weston

The Fortnightly

raphy

(San Francisco)

of Weston

32:77-81

exhibition

Edward

Weston,

purist, il American

of

The Art

of

il Creative

ARAGON

LEIVA, AGUSTIN.

Edward

Art 12:386-7

Weston,

ed.

by

M.

that

FRANCES D. Lowly

stark beauty,

are

El Nacional

N Y Sun

that

yield

strange,

My 1933.

La fotografia

(Mexico)

things

y la fotografia

en,

are the moderns thinking

& Shade Je 1931 p4-7,

about? il Light

11-14.

D 5 1933. MILLIER, ARTHUR. Realism or abstraction?

Weyhe,

different.

il N Y Times Mag N 16 1930 p 6-7, 20.

[MARTIN, IRA.] What

1 ARMITAGE,

Photog

at de Young Museum.

Armitage.

Mexico.

Arts & Arch 58no I:

F 1938.

McBRIDE, HENRY. Photographs

McMULLEN, Review

il Calif

O 22 1930.

D 18 1931 p21-22. Review

Weston,

16-17 Ja 1941.

MERLE, ed. The art

of

Edward

Weston.

N Y

Los Angeles

Times

F 9 1930.

1932. 12 p, 39pl.

Statements by Armitage, Jean Chariot, Lincoln Steffens, Edward Weston.

Edward

Weston:

an

Arthur Millier,

Charles

Some photographs

Sheeler,

by Edward

Weston.

portraits.]

Carmel

Los Angeles

Sunday Times Ja 2 1927.

estimate.

The Daily

Carmelite

PARKER,

Jy 24 1931.

RALPH.

[Weston

Pine

Cone

O 25 1929. The Edward

Weston

Print of the Month

THE AZTEC LAND, MEXICO. sus fotografias. Exhibition

catalog

Edward

Club. 1934.

Weston — exposicion

RIVERA, DIEGO. Edward de

Folkways

with excerpts

SCHINDLER,

from press notices.

BARUCH, RUTH MARION.

[Master's

BRENNER, ANITA. Edward

Weston nos muesta nuevas modali-

de su talento.

Revista de Revistas (Mexico)

grafica.

by Tina Modotti

11,000 copies of this book were New York.

36

G.

Weston

in retrospect.

printed

DAVID ALFARO. Una transcendental

Ei Informador

The Daily

(Guadalajara)

labor

foto-

S 4 1925.

O 4 1925. 8 WHITMAN,

with photographs

PAULINE

thesis in preparation]

Idols behind altars. N Y, Payson and Clarke, 1939. Illustrated

Mexican

Jy 29 1931.

SIQUEIROS,

6

and Tina Modotti.

1926.

1924. Carmelite

dades

Weston

2no 1:16-17 Ap-My

and Edward

Weston.

in February,

1946,

WALT.

Leaves

of grass.

N Y, Limited

Editions

Club, 1941. Containing

50 photographs

by Weston.

for the Trustees of The Museum of Modern

Art

by The Plantin Press,

^ m

PUBLICATIONS OF THE MUSEUM OF MODERN AR.' Now Available

11 West 53 Street, New York 19, N. Y. "'-M .; V

.P

-V

GENERAL Americans

1942:

Art in Progress.

18 Artists 256

from

pages;

Arts of the South Seas. 200 Britain

at War.

Mexican

Music. 32 pages;

Modern

Drawings.

Romantic

What

to Painting

is Modern

INDIVIDUAL Alexander Stuart

200

15 plates;

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Art.

44 pages;

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$2.00.

$3.75. cloth;

boards;

$5.00.

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126 plates

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200

cloth;

(4 in full color);

cloth;

144 pages;

123 plates;

frontispiece;

paper;

86 plates;

and Sculpture

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plates

paper;

cloth;

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16 pages;

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(No Membership

33 plates; paper:

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$1.50;

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ARTISTS Calder.

Davis.

64 pages;

40 pages;

Feininger-Hartley.

Rouault.

66 plates;

33 plates

96 pages;

Paul Klee. 64 pages; Georges

(4 in full color);

107 plates;

in America.

Centuries

128 pages;

plates

pages;

104 pages;

Painting

Supplement Twenty 2

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259

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ARCHITECTURE Built in U S A: Since 1932. If You Want Guide

128 pages;

206

To Build A House. 96 pages;

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cloth;

133 plates;

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$3.00.

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PHOTOGRAPHY Walker

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32 pages;

Photographs.

Critical

History.

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