Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) was an American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers"[1] and "one of the masters of 20th century photography."[2] Over the course of his 40-year career Weston photographed an increasingly expansive set of subjects, including landscapes, still lifes, nudes, portraits, genre scenes, and even whimsical parodies. It is said that he developed a "quintessentially American, and especially Californian, approach to modern photography"[3] because of his focus on the people and places of the American West. In 1937 Weston was the first photographer to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship, and over the next two years he produced nearly 1,400 negatives using his 8 × 10 view camera. Some of his most famous photographs were taken of the trees and rocks at Point Lobos, California, near where he lived for many years.
Weston was born in Chicago and moved to California when he was 21. He knew he wanted to be a photographer from an early age, and initially his work was typical of the soft focus pictorialism that was popular at the time. Within a few years, however he abandoned that style and went on to be one of the foremost champions of highly detailed photographic images.
In 1947 he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and he soon stopped photographing. He spent the remaining ten years of his life overseeing the printing of more than 1,000 of his most famous images.
Weston was born in Highland Park, Illinois, the second child and only son of Edward Burbank Weston, an obstetrician, and Alice Jeanette Brett, a Shakespearean actress.[4] His mother died when he was five years old and he was raised mostly by his sister Mary, whom he called "May" or "Maisie". She was nine years older than he, and they developed a very close bond that was one of the few steady relationships in Weston's life.[5]
His father remarried when he was nine, but neither Weston nor his sister got along with their new stepmother and stepbrother. After May was married and left their home in 1897, Weston's father devoted most of his time to his new wife and her son. Weston was left on his own much of the time; he stopped going to school and withdrew into his own room in their large home.[5]
As a present for his 16th birthday Weston's father gave him his first camera, a Kodak Bull's-Eye No. 2, which was a simple box camera. He took it on vacation in the Midwest, and by the time he returned home his interest in photography was enough to lead him to purchase a used 5 × 7 inch view camera. He began photographing in Chicago parks and a farm owned by his aunt, and developed his own film and prints. Later he would remember that even at that early age his work showed strong artistic merit. He said, "I feel that my earliest work of 1903 ‒ though immature ‒ is related more closely, both with technique and composition, to my latest work than are several of my photographs dating from 1913 to 1920, a period in which I was trying to be artistic."[6]
In 1904 May and her family moved to California, leaving Weston further isolated in Chicago. He earned a living by taking a job at a local department store, but he continued to spend most of his free time taking photos, Within two years he felt confident enough of his photography that he submitted his work to the magazine Camera and Darkroom, and in the April 1906 issue they published a full-page reproduction of his picture Spring, Chicago. This is the first known publication of any of his photographs.
In September 1904, Weston took part in the men's double American round archery event at the 1904 Summer Olympics with his father also taking part in the same event.[7]
At his sister's urging Weston left Chicago in the spring of 1906 and moved near May's home in Tropico, California (now a neighborhood in Glendale). He decided to stay there and pursue a career in photography, but he soon realized he needed more professional training. A year later he moved to Effingham, Illinois, to enroll in the Illinois College of Photography. They taught a nine-month course, but Weston finished all of the class work in six months. The school refused to give him a diploma unless he paid for the full nine months; Weston refused and instead moved back to California in the spring of 1908.
He briefly worked at the photography studio of George Steckel in Los Angeles, as a negative retoucher. Within a few months he moved to the more established studio of Louis Mojonier. For the next several years he learned the techniques and business of operating a photography studio under Mojonier's direction.
Within days of his visit to Tropico, Weston was introduced to his sister's best friend, Flora May Chandler. She was a graduate of the Normal School, later to become UCLA. She assumed the position of a grade-school teacher in Tropico. She was seven years older than Weston and a distant relative of Harry Chandler, who at that time was described as the head of "the single most powerful family in Southern California". This fact did not go unnoticed by Weston and his biographers.
On January 30, 1909, Weston and Chandler married in a simple ceremony. The first of their four sons, Edward Chandler Weston (1910–1993), known as Chandler, was born on April 26, 1910. Named Edward Chandler, after Weston and his wife, he later became a photographer as well.
In 1910 Weston opened his own business, called "The Little Studio", in Tropico. His sister later asked him why he opened his studio in Tropico rather than in the nearby metropolis of Los Angeles, and he replied "Sis, I'm going to make my name so famous that it won't matter where I live."[8]
For the next three years he worked, alone and sometimes with the assistance of family members in his studio. Even at that early stage of his career he was highly particular about his work; in an interview at that time he said "Photographic plates are nothing to me unless I get what I want. I have used thirty of them at a sitting if I did not secure the effect to suit me."[9]
His critical eye paid off for him and he quickly gained more recognition for his work. He won prizes in national competitions, published several more photographs and wrote articles for magazines such as Photo-Era and American Photography, championing the pictorial style.
On December 16, 1911, Weston's second son, Theodore Brett Weston (1911–1993), was born. He became a long-time artistic collaborator with his father and an important photographer on his own.
.JPG/1280px-Epilogue_-_Edward_Weston_(1919).JPG)
Sometime in the fall of 1913, Los Angeles photographer, Margrethe Mather visited Weston's studio because of his growing reputation, and within a few months they developed an intense relationship.[10] Weston was a quiet Midwestern transplant to California, and Mather was a part of the growing bohemian cultural scene in Los Angeles. She was very outgoing and artistic in a flamboyant way, and her permissive sexual morals were far different from the conservative Weston at the time – Mather had been a prostitute and was bisexual with a preference for women.[11] Mather presented a stark contrast to Weston's home life; his wife Flora was described as a "homely, rigid Puritan, and an utterly conventional woman, with whom he had little in common since he abhorred conventions"[12] ‒ and he found Mather's uninhibited lifestyle irresistible and her photographic vision intriguing.
He asked Mather to be his studio assistant, and for the next decade they worked closely together, making individual and jointly signed portraits of writers Carl Sandburg and Max Eastman. A joint exhibition of their work in 2001 revealed that during this period Weston emulated Mather's style and, later, her choice of subjects. On her own Mather photographed "fans, hands, eggs, melons, waves, bathroom fixtures, seashells and birds wings, all subjects that Weston would also explore."[13] A decade later he described her as "the first important person in my life, and perhaps even now, though personal contact has gone, the most important."[14]In early 1915 Weston began keeping detailed journals he later came to call his "Daybooks". For the next two decades he recorded his thoughts about his work, observations about photography, and his interactions with friends, lovers and family. On December 6, 1916, a third son, Lawrence Neil Weston, was born. He also followed in the footsteps of his father and became a well-known photographer. It was during this period that Weston first met photographer Johan Hagemeyer, whom Weston mentored and lent his studio to from time to time. Later, Hagemeyer would return the favor by letting Weston use his studio in Carmel after he returned from Mexico. For the next several years Weston continued to earn a living by taking portraits in his small studio which he called "the shack".[9]
Meanwhile, Flora was spending all of her time caring for their children. Their fourth son, Cole Weston (1919–2003), was born on January 30, 1919, and afterward she rarely had time to leave their home.
Over the summer of 1920 Weston met two people who were part of the growing Los Angeles cultural scene: Roubaix de l'Abrie Richey, known as "Robo" and a woman he called his wife, Tina Modotti. Modotti, who was then known only as a stage and film actress, was never married to Robo, but they pretended to be for the sake of his family. Weston and Modotti were immediately attracted to each other, and they soon became lovers.[15] Richey knew of Modotti's affair, but he continued to be friends with Weston and later invited him to come to Mexico and share his studio.[16]
The following year Weston agreed to allow Mather to become an equal partner in his studio. For several months they took portraits that they signed with both of their names. This was the only time in his long career that Weston shared credit with another photographer.
Sometime in 1920 he began photographing nude models for the first time. His first models were his wife Flora and their children, but soon thereafter he took at least three nude studies of Mather. He followed these with several more photographs of nude models, the first of dozens of figure studies he would make of friends and lovers over the next twenty years.
Until now Weston had kept his relationships with other women a secret from his wife, but as he began to photograph more nudes Flora became suspicious about what went on with him and his models. Chandler recalled that his mother regularly sent him on "errands" to his father's studio and asked him to tell her who was there and what they were doing.[17]
One of the first who agreed to model nude for Weston was Modotti. She became his primary model for the next several years.
In 1922 he visited his sister May, who had moved to Middletown, Ohio. While there he made five or six photographs of the tall smoke stacks at the nearby Armco steel mill. These images signaled a change in Weston's photographic style, a transition from the soft-focus pictorialism of the past to a new, cleaner-edge style. He immediately recognized the change and later recorded it in his notes: "The Middletown visit was something to remember...most of all in importance was my photographing of 'Armco'...That day I made great photographs, even Stieglitz thought they were important!"[18] Weston Naef, former curator of photography at the J. Paul Getty Museum, has praised the "technical virtuosity" of Weston's most successful Armco image (a print of which is owned by the Getty): "The range of grays across that forest of columns has about every gray you can image."[19]
At that time New York City was the cultural center for photography as an art form in America, and Alfred Stieglitz was the most influential figure in photography.[20] Weston badly wanted to go to New York to meet with him, but he did not have enough money to make the trip. His brother-in-law gave him enough money to continue on from Middletown to New York City, and he spent most of October and early November there. While there he met artist Charles Sheeler and photographers Clarence H. White, Gertrude Kasebier, as well as Stieglitz. Weston wrote that Stieglitz told him, "Your work and attitude reassures me. You have shown me at least several prints which have given me a great deal of joy. And I can seldom say that of photographs."[21]
Soon after Weston returned from New York, Robo moved to Mexico and set up a studio there to create batiks. Within a short while he had arranged for a joint exhibition of his work and of photographs by Weston, Mather and a few others. In early 1923 Modotti left by train to be with Robo in Mexico, but he contracted smallpox and died shortly before she arrived. Modotti was grief-stricken, but within a few weeks she felt well enough that she decided to stay and carry out the exhibition that Robo had planned. The show was a success, and due in no small part to his nude studies of Modotti, it firmly established Weston's artistic reputation in Mexico.[22]
After the show closed Modotti returned to California, and Weston and she made plans to return to Mexico together. He wanted to spend a couple of months there photographing and promoting his work, and, conveniently, he could travel under the pretense of Modotti being his assistant and translator.[23]
The week before he left for Mexico, Weston briefly reunited with Mather and took several nudes of her lying in the sand at Redondo Beach. These images were very different from his previous nude studies – sharply focused and showing her entire body in relation to the natural setting. They have been called the artistic prototypes for his most famous nudes, those of Charis Wilson which he would take more than a decade later.[24]
On July 30, 1923, Weston, his son Chandler, and Modotti left on a steamer for the extended trip to Mexico. His wife, Flora, and their other three sons waved goodbye to them at the dock. It's unknown what Flora understood or thought about the relationship between Weston and Modotti, but she is reported to have called out at the dock, "Tina, take good care of my boys."[25]
They arrived in Mexico City on August 11 and rented a large hacienda outside of the city. Within a month he had arranged for an exhibition of his work at the Aztec Land Gallery, and on October 17 the show opened to glowing press reviews. He was particularly proud of a review by Marius de Zayas that said "Photography is beginning to be photography, for until now it has only been art."[26]
The different culture and scenery in Mexico forced Weston to look at things in new ways. He became more responsive to what was in front of him, and he turned his camera on everyday objects like toys, doorways and bathroom fixtures. He also made several intimate nudes and portraits of Modotti. He wrote in his Daybooks:
The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself...I feel definite in the belief that the approach to photography is through realism.[27]
Weston continued to photograph the people and things around him, and his reputation in Mexico increased the longer he stayed. He had a second exhibition at the Aztec Land Gallery in 1924, and he had a steady stream of local socialites asking him to take their portraits. At the same time, Weston began to miss his other sons back in the U.S. As with many of his actions, though, it was a woman who motivated him most. He had recently corresponded with a woman he had known for several years named Miriam Lerner, and as her letters became more passionate he longed to see her again.[28]
He and Chandler returned to San Francisco at the end of 1924, and the next month he set up a studio with Johan Hagemeyer. Weston seemed to be struggling with his past and his future during this period. He burned all of his pre-Mexico journals, as though trying to erase the past, and started a new series of nudes with Lerner and with his son Neil. He wrote that these images were "the start of a new period in my approach and attitude towards photography."[28]
His new relationship with Lerner did not last long, and in August 1925 he returned to Mexico, this time with his son Brett. Modotti had arranged a joint show of their photographs, and it opened the week he returned. He received new critical acclaim and six of his prints were purchased for the State Museum. For the next several months he concentrated once again on photographing folk art, toys and local scenes. One of his strongest images of this period is of three black clay pots that art historian Rene d'Harnoncourt described as "the beginning of a new art."[29]
In May 1926 Weston signed a contract with writer Anita Brenner for $1,000 to make photographs for a book she was writing about Mexican folk art. In June he, Modotti and Brett started traveling around the country in search of lesser known native arts and crafts. His contract required him to give Brenner three finished prints from 400 8x10 negatives, and it took him until November of that year to complete the work.[30] During their travels, Brett received a crash course in photography from his father, and he made more than two dozen prints which his father judged to be of exceptional quality.
By the time they returned from their trip, Weston and Modotti's relationship had crumbled, and within less than two weeks he and Brett returned to California. He never traveled to Mexico again.
Weston initially returned to his old studio in Glendale (previously called Tropico). He hastily arranged a dual exhibition at University of California of the photographs that he and Brett had made the year before. The father showed 100 prints and the son showed 20. Brett was only 15 years old at the time.
In February he started a new series of nudes, this time of dancer Bertha Wardell. One of this series, of her kneeling body cut off at the shoulders, is one of Weston's most well-known figure studies. At this same time he met Canadian painter Henrietta Shore, whom he asked to comment on the photos of Wardell. He was surprised by her honest critique: "I wish you would not do so many nudes – you are getting used to them, the subject no longer amazes you ‒ most of these are just nudes."[31]
He asked to look at her work and was intrigued by her large paintings of sea shells. He borrowed several shells from her, thinking he might find some inspiration for a new still life series. Over the next few weeks he explored many different kinds of shell and background combinations – in his log of photographs taken for 1927 he listed fourteen negatives of shells.[32] One of these, simply called Nautilus, 1927" (sometimes called Shell, 1927), became one of his most famous images. Modotti called the image "mystical and erotic,"[33] and when she showed it to Rene d'Harnoncourt he said he felt "weak at the knees."[34] Weston is known to have made at least twenty-eight prints of this image, more than he had made of any other shell image.[32]
In September of that year Weston had a major exhibition at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. At the opening of the show he met fellow photographer Willard Van Dyke, who later introduced Weston to Ansel Adams.
In May 1928, Weston and Brett made a brief but important trip to the Mojave Desert. It was there that he first explored and photographed landscapes as an art form.[35] He found the stark rock forms and empty spaces to be a visual revelation, and over a long weekend he took twenty-seven photographs.[36] In his journal he declared "these negatives are the most important I have ever done."[37]
Later that year he and Brett moved to San Francisco, where they lived and worked in a small studio owned by Hagemeyer. He made portraits to earn an income, but he longed to get away by himself and get back to his art. In early 1929 he moved to Johan Hagemeyer's cottage in Carmel, and it was there that he finally found the solitude and the inspiration that he was seeking. He placed a sign in studio window that said, "Edward Weston, photographer, Unretouched Portraits, Prints for Collectors."
He started making regular trips to nearby Point Lobos, where he would continue to photograph until the end of his career. It was there that he learned to fine-tune his photographic vision to match the visual space of his view camera, and the images he took there, of kelp, rocks and wind-blown trees, are among his finest. Looking at his work from this period, one biographer wrote:
Weston arranged his compositions so that things happened on the edges; lines almost cross or meet and circular lines just touch the edges tangentially; his compositions were now created exclusively for a space with the proportions of eight by ten. There is no extraneous space nor is there too little.[38]