Edward Weston
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- This article is about the photographer. For the pedestrian, see Edward Payson Weston. For the English chemist, see Edward Weston (chemist).
Edward Weston (March 24, 1886 - January 1, 1958) was an American photographer, and co-founder of Group f/64. Most of his work was done using an 8 by 10 inch view camera.
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[edit] Life and work
Edward Weston was born in Highland Park, Illinois on March 24, 1886. In 1902, he received his first camera for his sixteenth birthday, a Kodak Bull's-Eye #2, and began taking photographs in parks in Chicago and at his aunt's farm. The young Weston met with quick success, and his photographs were already being exhibited at the Chicago Art Institute merely a year later, in 1903.
In 1906, Weston moved to California, where he ultimately decided to stay and pursue a career as a photographer. He married his first wife, Flora May Chandler, in 1909, and together they had four sons: Chandler (1910), Brett (1911), Neil (1914) and Cole (1919). In 1911, Weston opened his first photographic studio in Tropico, California (now Glendale) and wrote articles about his unconventional methods of portraiture for several high-circulation magazines.
1922 marked a period of transition for Weston. Renouncing pictorialism in favor of straight photography, he began regular visits to Mexico with his professional and romantic partner, Tina Modotti, whose relationship with Weston was the cause of much gossip in the media. They were often accompanied by one of Weston's sons, who received a sound instruction in photography. Brett and Cole later embarked on their own, successful careers in this field; likewise his grandson Kim, and his great-granddaughter Christine Weston (born 1958.)
After 1927, Weston worked mainly with nudes, still life - his shells and vegetable studies were especially important - and landscape subjects. After a few exhibitions of his works in New York, he went on to found Group f/64 in 1932 with fellow photographers Ansel Adams, Willard van Dyke and others. The term f/64 referred to the smallest aperture setting on a large format camera, which secured maximum depth of field, rendering a photograph evenly sharp from foreground to background. This corresponded to the philosophy of straight photography which the members of the group espoused in response to the pictorialist methods that were still in fashion at the time.
According to the group's manifesto, "the members of Group f/64 believe that photography, as an art form, must develop along lines defined by the actualities and limitations of the photographic medium, and must always remain independent of ideological conventions of art and aesthetics that are reminiscent of a period and culture antedating the growth of the medium itself."
Weston was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship in 1937, the first photographer to win this award. 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 Whitman's Leaves of Grass illustrated with his photographs. He also produced some rare color photographs with Willard van Dyke in 1947. Weston collaborated on several volumes of his photographs with photography critic Nancy Newhall, beginning in 1946.
The full archive of Edward Weston's work is housed at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
[edit] Illness
Stricken with Parkinson's Disease, Weston made his last photographs at Point Lobos State Reserve in 1948. 1952 saw the publication of a fiftieth-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 print 800 of what he considered his most important negatives under his supervision in the years 1955 - 1956.
Edward Weston died in his house on Wildcat Hill in Carmel, California on January 1, 1958, aged 71.
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 twentieth century.
[edit] 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
[edit] External links
- edward-weston.com
- Kim Weston Photographer, grandson of Edward Weston, son of Cole Weston currently living in Edward Weston's house on Wildcat Hill.
- Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
