The photographs of Edward Weston

45 Pages·2016·7.04 MB·English

by  Weston, Edward, 1886-1958

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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 PHOTOGRAPHSO F
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, and to Jean Chariot for
permission to quote from his manuscript, I am particularly grateful. 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
TRUSTEESO F THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
Stephen C. Clark, Chairman of the Board; Henry Allen Moe, 1st Vice-Chairman; Sam A. Lewisohn, 2nd Vice-
chairman; John Hay Whitney, President; Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1st Vice-President; John E. Abbott, Executive
Vice-President; Ranald H. Macdonald, Treasurer; Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss, William A. M.
Burden, Mrs. W. Murray Crane, Walt Disney, Marshall Field, Philip L. Goodwin, A. Conger Goodyear,
Mrs. Simon Guggenheim, Wallace K. Harrison, James W. Husted, Mrs. David M. Levy, Henry R. Luce, David
H. McAlpin, William S. Paley, Mrs. E. B. Parkinson, Mrs. Charles S. Payson, Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.,
Beardsley 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,N EW YORK 19, N. Y., PRINTEDI N U.S.A.
MM A
EDWARD WESTON
In 1902 two letters passed between Dr. Edward carrying the level rod on the Old Salt Lake Rail
Burbank Weston and his sixteen-year-old son road, he found mathematics in the hot desert sun
Edward Henry, who was spending the summer on overpowering. Returning to Tropico he set up as a
a farm. The first, from Dr. Weston, accompanied a photographer. With a postcard camera he went
Bullseye camera and contained instructions on from house to house, photographing babies, pets,
loading, standing with the light over one shoulder, family groups, funerals, anything for a dollar a
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 his profession. He at
photograph of the chickens. tended a "college of photography," learning a
From then on photography absorbed young solid darkroom technique and how not to pose a
Edward; his interest in school dwindled. When a sitter. For a year or two he held jobs with commer
magazine reproduced one of his sensitive little cial portraitists, learning to make exact duplicate
landscapes, such ambitions as wanting to be a prints even from the poorly exposed and lighted
painter or prizefighter vanished; he was definitely negatives of his bosses.
a photographer. In 1909 he married. Four sons were born:
A livelihood, however, was something else. He Chandler, 1910; Brett, 1911; Neil, 1914; and Cole,
came of generations of New England professional 1919.
men. Edward, born in Highland Park, Illinois, in In 1911 Weston built his own studio at Tropico.
1886, and his beloved sister Mary, were the first 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 taught at Bowdoin College to make several exposures before they were
before moving to the Midwest to head a female aware of it. Posing by suggestion, he hid ungainly
seminary. His father, a general practitioner, found shapes in chiffon scarves or vignetted them away.
time during his rounds to teach in a local college. His The soft-focus Verito lens helped, and he retouched
mother, rebelling at the family tradition, left it as so deftly and with such regard for actual modeling
her dying wish that Edward should escape and that his patrons, unconscious of any change, were
become a business man. convinced they looked that well.
After three dull years as an errand boy in Chi He was particularly successful with children. Try
cago, Edward went on a two-week holiday to visit ing to capture their activity, he bought, around
Mary, now married and living in Tropico, Cali 1912, a 3 Va x4'/4 Graflex. The curtains obscuring
fornia. Enchanted by the place, he decided to stay, his skylight and sunny windows came down; the
and immediately got a job with some surveyors, subtleties of natural light absorbed him. "I have a
punching stakes in orange groves for a boom- room full of corners—bright corners, dark corners,
town railroad nobody intended to build. Later, alcoves! An endless change takes place daily as
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