Edward Weston: Nudes, Still Lives, and Landscapes
Alive from March 24, 1886 to January 1, 1958, Edward Weston was one of the most creative and influential American photographers of the 20th century. In his over 40 year career in photography, he would capture countless landscapes, still lives, nudes, portraits, and innovative sceneries. Through cultivating his unique style of photography in America – particularly California, he helped define modern American photography from its contemporary, global counterparts.
Weston’s introduction to photography was through a Kodak Bull’s-Eye No. 2 simple box camera from his father on his 16th birthday in 1902. Yet after a short vacation in the Midwest, his passion for photography had already begun and he bought himself a used 5 x 7 view camera. In 1908 he began attending the Illinois College of Photography but after completing all necessary coursework and refusing to pay, he never was awarded a degree. With various dead-end work experiences, he ended up opening his own photography studio named “The Little Studio” with his wife Flora Chandler in 1911.
Despite minor help from his family (particularly his son Edward Chandler, who would also become a skilled photographer), Weston mainly worked alone for the next 3 years. Even this early in his career, he was already very methodical in his photographing process. Notably, he would carry tens of spare photographic plates for his new portrait camera in case he did not get the picture he envisioned. With his new portrait camera, he gained notoriety and commercial success in the Pictorialist Style. Yet, with his experience in photographing the human body and with a boredom of commercial photography, his pieces remained focused on the human body but more abstract this time around. This development was also helped by meeting Los Angeles photographer Margrethe Mather. Being a bisexual prostutute with a preference towards women with very different sexual morals than the conservative Weston, Mather introduced him to the interesting world of sexuality.
Weston began taking nudes. He started his nude works with pictures of his wife and children, but soon did a short series with Mather and then Tina Modotti, who would later become his apprentice, muse, and primary model. During this period of Weston’s life, we see a lot of development in the way he captures the nude body. He began to take nudes that sharply focused on showing the human body in relation to the scenery around it. Soon his relationship with Modotti fell out, and he moved on to more relationships full of nude photographs. Notably Henrietta Shore who criticized his later nude photographs as being stale; the subject no longer sparked intense interest to him as it had in the past.
Weston then begins to take still life photographs. Inspired by Shore’s paintings of seashells, he started taking photographs of seashells. This series of seashell photographs were particularly influential because of Weston’s use of strong contrasting lighting and substantial framing where small subjects take up most of the image. As his recognition as a photographer grew, he was also granted more opportunities to explore the extent of his abilities. As the first ever photographer given a Guggenheim grant in 1937, he was given the financial opportunity to go on various trips where he would take photographs of nature and landscapes among other things.
Weston would go on to continually perfect his craft but as a victim of Parkinson’s disease, his ability to create photographs of his own slowly disappeared. Yet despite his physical inability to take photographs did not stop his photographic development. Through working closely with his sons who were also photographers, he continued to develop his eye for composition and aesthetics.
Nude, 1925
Dunes, Oceana, 1936
Slides:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1IKYPLKXSThCB1tH6VD9vRU8XYx7buAspJZrP6UXQCY0/edit?usp=sharing
Bibliography:
Weston, Edward, 1886-1958.; Washington Gallery of Modern Art (Washington, D.C.);University of Texas. Art Museum.;University of Oregon. Museum of Art
http://www.artnet.com/artists/edward-weston/5
https://www.westongallery.com/original-works-by/edward-weston
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/edward-weston-2720
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-Weston-American-photographer