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Edward Weston
Biography
Edward Henry
Weston was born March 24, 1886, in Highland Park, Illinois. He
spent the majority of his childhood in Chicago where he attended Oakland
Grammar School. He began photographing at the age of sixteen after
receiving a Bull’s Eye #2 camera from his father. Weston’s first
photographs captured the parks of Chicago and his aunt’s farm. In 1906,
following the publication of his first photograph in Camera and
Darkroom, Weston moved to California. After working briefly as a
surveyor for San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, he began
working as an itinerant photographer. He peddled his wares door to door
photographing children, pets and funerals. Realizing the need for formal
training, in 1908 Weston returned east and attended the Illinois College
of Photography in Effington, Illinois. He completed the 12-month course
in six months and returned to California. In Los Angeles, he was
employed as a retoucher at the George Steckel Portrait Studio. In 1909,
Weston moved on to the Louis A. Mojoiner Portrait Studio as a
photographer and demonstrated outstanding abilities with lighting and
posing.) Weston married his first wife, Flora Chandler in 1909. He had
four children with Flora; Edward Chandler (1910), Theodore Brett (1911),
Laurence Neil (1916) and Cole (1919). In 1911, Weston opened his own
portrait studio in Tropico, California. This would be his base of
operation for the next two decades. Weston became successful working in
soft-focus, pictorial style; winning many salons and professional
awards. Weston gained an international reputation for his high key
portraits and modern dance studies. Articles about his work were
published in magazines such as American Photography, Photo Era and Photo
Miniature. Weston also authored many articles himself for many of these
publications. In 1912, Weston met photographer Margrethe Mather in his
Tropico studio. Mather becomes his studio assistant and most frequent
model for the next decade. Mather had a very strong influence on Weston.
He would later call her, “the first important woman in my life.” Weston
began keeping journals in 1915 that came to be known as his "Daybooks."
They would chronicle his life and photographic development into the
1930’s.
In 1922 Weston visited the ARMCO Steel Plant in Middletown, Ohio. The
photographs taken here marked a turning point in Weston’s career. During
this period, Weston renounced his Pictorialism style with a new emphasis
on abstract form and sharper resolution of detail. The industrial
photographs were true straight images: unpretentious, and true to
reality. Weston later wrote, “The camera should be used for a recording
of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing
itself, whether it be polished steel or palpitating flesh.” Weston also
traveled to New York City this same year, where he met Alfred Stieglitz,
Paul Strand, Charles Sheeler and Georgia O’Keefe.
In 1923 Weston moved to Mexico City where he opened a photographic
studio with his apprentice and lover Tina Modotti. Many important
portraits and nudes were taken during his time in Mexico. It was also
here that famous artists; Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros, and Jose Orozco
hailed Weston as the master of 20th century art.
After moving back to California in 1926, Weston began his work for which
he is most deservedly famous: natural forms, close-ups, nudes, and
landscapes. Between 1927 and 1930, Weston made a series of monumental
close-ups of seashells, peppers, and halved cabbages, bringing out the
rich textures of their sculpture-like forms. Weston moved to Carmel,
California in 1929 and shot the first of many photographs of rocks and
trees at Point Lobos, California. Weston became one of the founding
members of Group f/64 in 1932 with Ansel Adams, Willard Van Dyke, Imogen
Cunningham and Sonya Noskowiak. The group chose this optical term
because they habitually set their lenses to that aperture to secure
maximum image sharpness of both foreground and distance. 1936 marked the
start of Weston’s series of nudes and sand dunes in Oceano, California,
which are often considered some of his finest work. Weston became the
first photographer to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship for experimental
work in 1936. Following the receipt of this fellowship Weston spent the
next two years taking photographs in the West and Southwest United
States with assistant and future wife Charis Wilson. Later, in 1941
using photographs of the East and South Weston provided illustrations
for a new edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.
Weston began experiencing symptoms of Parkinson’s disease in 1946 and in
1948 shot his last photograph of Point Lobos. In 1946 the Museum of
Modern Art, New York featured a major retrospective of 300 prints of
Weston’s work. Over the next 10 years of progressively incapacitating
illness, Weston supervised the printing of his prints by his sons, Brett
and Cole. His 50th Anniversary Portfolio was published in 1952 with
photographs printed by Brett. An even larger printing project took place
between1952 and 1955. Brett printed what was known as the Project
Prints. A series of 8 -10 prints from 832 negatives considered Edward's
lifetime best. The Smithsonian Institution held
the show, “The World of Edward Weston” in 1956 paying tribute to his
remarkable accomplishments in American photography. Edward Weston died
on January 1, 1958 at his home, Wildcat Hill, in Carmel, California.
Weston's ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean at Pebbly Beach at
Point Lobos.
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