Edward Weston
Edward Weston was
born in 1886 in Highland Park, Illinois. When he was sixteen years old
his father gave him a Kodak Bulls-Eye #2 camera and he began to
photograph at his aunt's farm and in Chicago parks. In 1903 Weston first
had his photographs exhibited at the Chicago Art Institute. Soon after
the San Francisco earthquake and fire on April 19, 1906, Weston came to
California to work as a surveyor for San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt
Lake Railroad. For a short while Weston returned to Chicago and attended
the Illinois College of Photography, but came back to California to live
in 1908 where he became a founding member of the Camera Pictorialists of
Los Angeles. He married Flora Chandler in 1909 and they soon gave birth
to two sons: Edward Chandler Weston, in 1910 and Theodore Brett Weston
in 1911. Weston had his own portrait studio in Tropico, California and
also began to have articles published in magazines such as American
Photography, Photo Era and Photo-Miniature where his
article entitled "Weston's Methods" on unconventional portraiture
appeared in September, 1917. Weston's third son, Laurence Neil Weston,
was born in 1916 and his fourth, Cole Weston, in 1919. Soon after Weston
met Tina Modotti which marked the starting point of their long
relationship, photographic collaborations in Mexico and later much
publicized love affair. Modotti's husband, a political radical in
Mexico, died in 1922. That same year Weston traveled to Ohio to visit
his sister and there took photographs of the Armco Steel Plant. From
Ohio he went to New York and met Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Charles
Sheeler and Georgia O'Keefe. At this time Weston renounced Pictorialism
and began a period of transition, self-analysis and self-discipline
while making voyages to Mexico, often with Modotti and one of his sons.
Some of the photographs that he and Modotti made in Mexico were
published in Anita Brenner's book Idols Behind Altars. Weston
began photographing shells, vegetables and nudes in 1927. Weston kept
very detailed journals or "Day Books" of his daily activities, thoughts,
ideas and conversations. His first publication of these writings "From
My Day Book" appeared in 1928 - others were published after his death.
Two years later he had his first New York exhibit at Alma Reed's Delphic
Studios Gallery and later exhibited at Harvard Society of Contemporary
Arts with Walker Evans, Eugene Atget, Sheeler, Stieglitz, Modotti and
others. Weston was a Charter member of the "Group f/64" that was started
in 1932 and included Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Consuelo Kanaga and
others. They chose this optical term because they habitually set their
lenses to that aperture to secure maximum image sharpness of both
foreground and distance. Weston went even further toward photographic
purity in 1934 when he resolved to make only unretouched portraits. Even
though several large exhibitions followed, he was still of modest means
and in 1935 initiated the "Edward Weston Print of the Month Club"
offering photographs at $10 each. In 1937 he was the first photographer
to be awarded a Guggenheim fellowship taking his assistant Charis Wilson
along on his travels whom he married the next year. In 1940 the book
California and the West was published with text by Charis and
photographs by Edward. The same year he participated in the U.S.
Camera Yosemite Photographic Forum with Ansel Adams and Dorthea
Lange. In 1941 he was commissioned by Limited Editions Club to
illustrate a new edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.
Weston started experiencing symptoms of Parkinson's disease in 1946 and
in 1948 made his last photographs at Point Lobos. In 1952 his
Fiftieth Anniversary Portfolio was published with his images printed
by Brett. In 1955 Weston selected several of what he called "Project
Prints" and began having Brett, Cole and Dody Warren print them under
his supervision. Lou Stoumen released his film The Naked Eye in
1956 of which he used several of Weston's print as well as footage of
Weston himself. Edward Weston died at home on January 1, 1958.
