Edward Henry Weston (March 24 1886 – January 1 1958) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
photographerPhotography is the process, activity and art of creating still or moving pictures by recording radiation on a sensitive medium, such as a photographic film, or an electronic sensor...
, and co-founder of
Group f/64Group f/64 was a group of seven 20th century San Francisco photographers who shared a common photographic style characterized by sharp-focused and carefully framed images seen through a particularly Western viewpoint...
. Most of his work was done using an 8 by 10 inch
view cameraThe view camera is a type of camera first developed in the era of the Daguerreotype and still in use today, though with many refinements. It comprises a flexible bellows which forms a light-tight seal between two adjustable standards, one of which holds a lens, and the other a viewfinder or a...
.
Born in
Highland ParkHighland Park is a city in the Moraine Township of Lake County, Illinois, United States. The population was 31,365 at the 2000 census. It now has 33,492 citizens as of September 28th, 2009. Highland Park is one of several affluent towns on the North Shore of Chicago...
,
IllinoisIllinois , the 21st state admitted to the United States of America, is the most populous and demographically diverse Midwestern state and the fifth most populous state in the nation...
on March 24, 1886. He was given his first
camerathumb |right|Cameras from Large to Small, Film to Digital A camera is a device that records images, either as a still photograph or as moving images known as videos or movies...
, a Kodak Bull's-Eye #2, for his 16th birthday, when he began taking photographs. His favorite hangouts were
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and with more than 2.8 million people, the 3rd largest city in the United States...
parks and a farm owned by his aunt. Weston met with quick success and the Chicago Art Institute exhibited his photographs a year later, in 1903.
Edward Henry Weston (March 24 1886 – January 1 1958) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
photographerPhotography is the process, activity and art of creating still or moving pictures by recording radiation on a sensitive medium, such as a photographic film, or an electronic sensor...
, and co-founder of
Group f/64Group f/64 was a group of seven 20th century San Francisco photographers who shared a common photographic style characterized by sharp-focused and carefully framed images seen through a particularly Western viewpoint...
. Most of his work was done using an 8 by 10 inch
view cameraThe view camera is a type of camera first developed in the era of the Daguerreotype and still in use today, though with many refinements. It comprises a flexible bellows which forms a light-tight seal between two adjustable standards, one of which holds a lens, and the other a viewfinder or a...
.
Life and work
Born in
Highland ParkHighland Park is a city in the Moraine Township of Lake County, Illinois, United States. The population was 31,365 at the 2000 census. It now has 33,492 citizens as of September 28th, 2009. Highland Park is one of several affluent towns on the North Shore of Chicago...
,
IllinoisIllinois , the 21st state admitted to the United States of America, is the most populous and demographically diverse Midwestern state and the fifth most populous state in the nation...
on March 24, 1886. He was given his first
camerathumb |right|Cameras from Large to Small, Film to Digital A camera is a device that records images, either as a still photograph or as moving images known as videos or movies...
, a Kodak Bull's-Eye #2, for his 16th birthday, when he began taking photographs. His favorite hangouts were
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and with more than 2.8 million people, the 3rd largest city in the United States...
parks and a farm owned by his aunt. Weston met with quick success and the Chicago Art Institute exhibited his photographs a year later, in 1903. He attended the
Illinois College of PhotographyThe Illinois College of Photography and Bissell College of Photo Engraving was founded in the late 19th century and was located initially on the Austin College campus in Effingham County, Illinois. It later moved to its separate studio and buildings in 1900 at 910–945 Wabash Ave in Effingham...
.
In 1906, Weston moved to
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
, where he decided to stay and pursue a
careerCareer is a term defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as an individual's "course or progress through life "...
in photography. He had four sons with his wife, Flora May Chandler (whom he married in 1909): Edward Chandler (Chan) (1910),
Theodore BrettBrett Weston was an American photographer and the second son of photographer Edward Weston. Brett’s photographs often approach abstraction, with subjects that are difficult to decipher...
(1911), Laurence Neil (Neil)(1914) and
ColeCole Weston was the youngest son of photographer Edward Weston and brother of photographer Brett Weston. He dedicated his life to photography and the theater....
(1919). In 1910, Weston opened his first
photographic studioA photographic studio is both a workspace and a corporate body. As a workspace it is much like an artist’s studio, but providing space to take, develop, print and duplicate photographs. Photographic training and the display of finished photographs may also be accommodated in a photographic studio...
in Tropico, California (now
GlendaleGlendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. It lies at the eastern end of the San Fernando Valley, is bisected by the Verdugo Mountains, and is a suburb in the Greater Los Angeles Area...
) and wrote articles about his unconventional methods of portraiture for several high-circulation magazines.
In 1922, Weston experienced a transition from
pictorialismPictorialism is the name given to a photographic movement in vogue from around 1885 following the widespread introduction of the dry-plate process...
to
straight photographyPure photography refers to photography that attempts to depict a scene as realistically and objectively as permitted by the medium, renouncing the use of manipulation.Founded in 1932, Group f/64 who championed purist photography, had this to say:...
, becoming "the pioneer of precise and sharp presentation". His pictures included the human figure as well as items of nature, including seaside wildlife, plants, and landscapes.
Tina ModottiTina Modotti was an Italian photographer, model, actress, and revolutionary political activist.- Early life :She was born Assunta Adelaide Luigia Modotti Mondini in Udine, Friuli, Italy...
, his professional (and romantic) partner, often accompanied him to Mexico, creating much gossip in the media. Weston's sons were also frequent companions, receiving lessons in photography from their experienced father. Brett and Cole later embarked on their own careers in the field, along with Weston's grandson
KimKim Weston is an American photographer known for his fine art nude studies.Kim Weston is the grandson of photographer Edward Weston, son of photographer Cole Weston and nephew of photographer Brett Weston. He worked for a number of years helping his father make new prints of Edward Weston's...
and great-children, Christine and
Jason.
After 1927, Weston worked mainly with
nudesNudity is the state of wearing no clothing.It is related to the concept of modesty and is sometimes used to refer to wearing significantly less clothing than expected by the conventions of a particular culture and situation, and in particular exposing the bare skin or intimate...
, still life — his shells and vegetable studies were especially important — and landscape subjects.
Henrietta ShoreHenrietta Shore, 1880-1963, was a post-impressionist Canadian painter who exhibited contemporaneously with Georgia O'Keeffe and influenced the photographer Edward Weston. Her media were oils, murals, watercolors, and lithographs....
was a companion in the 1930s; her paintings influenced him to photograph her shells. After a few exhibitions of his works in New York, he co-founded
Group f/64Group f/64 was a group of seven 20th century San Francisco photographers who shared a common photographic style characterized by sharp-focused and carefully framed images seen through a particularly Western viewpoint...
in 1932 with
Ansel AdamsAnsel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West and primarily Yosemite National Park....
,
Willard Van DykeWillard Van Dyke was an American filmmaker and photographer who believed that photography could have a major influence on the world....
and others. The term
f/64 referred to a very small
apertureIn optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture of an optical system is the opening that determines the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane. The aperture determines how collimated the admitted rays are,...
setting on a large format camera, which secured great
depth of fieldIn optics, particularly as relates to film and photography, the depth of field is the portion of a scene that appears acceptably sharp in the image...
, making a photograph appear evenly sharp from foreground to background. Weston also achieved great sharpness by not enlarging. He made contact prints from his 4x5" or 8x10" negatives. The detailed, straight photography that the group espoused was in opposition to the pictorialist soft-edged methods that were still in fashion at the time.
In 1937 the
Solomon R. Guggenheim FoundationThe Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is a nonprofit corporation founded in 1937 by philanthropist Solomon R. Guggenheim and artist Hilla von Rebay. The first museum established by the foundation was the Museum of Non-Objective Art" which was housed in rented space on Park Avenue in New York...
awarded Weston a fellowship, the first given to a photographer. He married his assistant, Charis Wilson, the following year (they had lived together since 1934, and divorced in 1946). During this time he received exclusive commissions and published several books, some with Wilson, including an edition of
WhitmanWalter Whitman was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. He was a part of the transition between Transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
's
Leaves of GrassLeaves of Grass is a poetry collection by the American poet Walt Whitman. Among the poems in the collection are "Song of Myself," "I Sing the Body Electric," "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," and in later editions, Whitman's elegy to the assassinated President Abraham Lincoln, "When Lilacs...
illustrated with his photographs. He also produced some of his few
color photographsColor photography is photography that uses media capable of representing colors which are produced chemically during the photographic processing phase. It is contrasted with black-and-white photography, which uses media capable only of showing shades of gray. It does not include hand colored or...
with Willard Van Dyke in 1947. Weston also collaborated on several volumes of his photographs with photography critic
Nancy NewhallNancy Wynne Newhall was an American photography critic. She is best known for writing the text to accompany photographs by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, but was also a widely published writer on photography, conservation, and American culture.Newhall was born Nancy Wynne in Lynn, Massachusetts,...
, beginning in 1946.
The
Center for Creative PhotographyThe Center for Creative Photography , established in 1975 and located on the University of Arizona campus, is a research facility and archival repository containing the full archives of over sixty of the most famous American photographers including those of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Harry...
at the
University of ArizonaThe University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
in Tucson houses a full archive of Edward Weston's work.
Illness and death
Stricken with
Parkinson's DiseaseParkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that often impairs the sufferer's motor skills, speech, and other functions....
, Weston made his last photographs at
Point Lobos State ReservePoint Lobos is the common name for the area including Point Lobos State Reserve and two adjoining marine protected areas: Point Lobos State Marine Reserve and Point Lobos State Marine Conservation Area...
in 1948. 1952 saw the publication of a 50th-anniversary portfolio of his work, printed by his son Brett. Brett and Cole Weston, as well as Brett's wife Dody Warren, were appointed to
printPhotographic printing is the process of producing a final image on paper for viewing, using chemically sensitized paper. The paper is exposed to a photographic negative, a positive transparency , or a digital image file projected using an enlarger or digital exposure unit such as a LightJet printer...
800 of what he considered his most important
negativesIn photography, a negative may refer to three different things, although they are all related.-A negative:Film, for 35mm cameras comes in long narrow strips of chemical-coated plastic. As each image is captured by the camera onto the film strip, the film strip advances so that the next image is...
under his supervision in the years 1955 to 1956.
Edward Weston died in his house on Wildcat Hill in Carmel Highlands in Big Sur, California on January 1 1958, age 71.
Legacy
His comprehensive legacy includes the detailed and articulate
Daybooks he kept regularly from the mid-1920s to 1934, which allow a very intimate glimpse into his personal life, his views on photography, and his working methods. Weston is generally recognized as one of the greatest photographic artists of the 20th century.
Images
Most Popular: "Pepper #30"; "Dunes, Oceano", "Nude, 1936"
The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded in 1851 and published in New York City. The largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States, "The Gray Lady"—named for its staid appearance and style—is regarded as a national newspaper of record...
newspaper reported on April 14, 2008 that Sotheby’s sold an Edward Weston photograph to a New York art dealer for $1.6 Million.
Price History:
1970s: $500 - $1,500
1980s: $3,000 - $50,000
1990s: $10,000 - $300,000
Current: $5,000 - $1.6M
Most of his photographs are rare and unnumbered and few vintage photographs are available.
Even though he was a celebrated photographer he survived selling his photos for a humble price of $7-10.
Quotations
"Photography to the amateur is recreation, to the professional it is work, and hard work too, no matter how pleasurable it may be."
"The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself, whether it be polished steel or palpitating flesh."
"I cannot believe I learned anything of value in school unless it be the will to rebel."
"I want the stark beauty that a lens can so exactly render presented without interference of artistic effect."
"The camera sees more than the eye."
Selected publications
- Edward Weston: The Last Years in Carmel
- Edward and Brett Weston: Dune
- The Daybooks of Edward Weston
- Edward Weston: Nudes
- Portraits by Edward Weston
- Tina Modotti & Edward Weston: The Mexico Years
- Edward Weston: His Life
- Edward, Cole, Kim Weston: Three Generations of American Photography
- Edward Weston: 1886-1958
- Edward Weston (Masters of Photography Series)
- Laughing Eyes (a collection of letters between Edward and Cole Weston)
- Through Another Lens: My Years with Edward Weston by Charis Wilson and Wendy Madar (1998) ISBN 0-86547-521-0
External links