Book Description

This book appears in conjunction with an exhibition organized by The Art Institute of Chicago that focuses on the late work of photographer Edward Weston. Taken between1938 and 1948, these images reveal his shift from his formalist style, characterized by technological virtuosity and innovative compositions, to one that accommodated a greater psychological component. The first photographs of this period date from Weston's return to his spiritual home near Carmel, California, during his second Guggenheim fellowship. He now saw the surrounding coast with different eyes: while he had once focused on details and still lifes, he now found himself drawn to vistas, horizons, the movement of water, and moody atmospheres of elemental power. The seventy-plus photographs in this book, sumptuously printed in tritone reproductions, include--in addition to his images of nature--Weston's powerful portraits of his immediate family, as well as domestic scenes taken in and around his home. Also included is a critical essay exploring Weston's life and work during this period, by David Travis, Curator of Photography at the Art Institute and a longtime specialist in the career of Edward Weston.
Hardcover, 10.5 x 11.5 inches, 144 pages, 100 tritone illustrations.
Exhibition Schedule: Art Institute of Chicago, June-October 2001; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, March-June 2002. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Rich and dark food for thought
This is a catalog for a show currently at San Francisco MOMA, launched in Chicago last year. (Weston came from Illinois and did most of his work in California.) It is essentially a re-edition of Weston's My Camera On Point Lobos, published in 1951 and again in 1968. The major change is text by David Travis replacing excerpts from Weston's daybooks in the original.

The text is intended to humanize someone who is mostly mythical by describing and interpreting events in the last years of his life at Point Lobos. It presents the author's analysis of Weston's career, state of mind and the evolution of his late style. There is little or no new material here and the analysis is strained, but thoughtful.

There are some intelligent comparisons presented of Weston's late and early views of the same subject. As a collection this is not a good introduction to Weston. It is a good final chapter to the Daybooks and a beautiful collection of reproductions. It is also a good companion to Ansel Adams at 100, showing how these two friends viewed many of the same subjects so differently. It would be a good addition to reading Charis Wilson's Through Another Lens, showing many pictures of domestic life including Weston's children, cats, and many of Charis Wilson. There is a lot of "inside baseball" here, both explicit and implied.

There is at least one important image in the show that is not in the catalog and there are many important omissions from the show itself, which make this a poor place to start studying Weston's work. For the record, both Weston and Adams experimented with color in the late 40s, shooting the same images in color and black and white. The color images aren't good but they are a very good way to show why their respective monochrome images are so strong.

It is worth repeating that while the printed images are as good as any you'll see, they are not even close to the 8X10 contact prints in the show. This really matters in Weston's work. If you have a chance to see the San Francisco show, before it is put away for another 10 years, you will also see additional earlier prints from SFMOMA's outstanding permanent collection which put the theme of the show into context that is missing from the book.

This is Weston when he was only satisfying his own search for meaning, not making statements or presenting his vision to the world. These are his final meditations and he knew it. They are by far his richest and most abstract work and worthy of a lot of study.

Edward Weston: The Last Years in Carmel
A finely printed book that features more than the regular images that every other book has. The essay is a very worthwhile read. It offers wonderful insites to the photogrpaher at the end of his working career.A real must to any Weston colection of books.

A squirrelly, but talented photographer
Edward Weston was one of the most squirelly, yet most talented photographers in the history of the medium - he rarely smiled, wore women's clothes, never learned to drive, married a woman 30 years his junior, lived in a shack in Carmel and loved philandering with Tina Modotti and others. He died with $300 in the bank in 1958, yet his photograph of a Circus Tent went at auction a few years ago for $266,000. His influence on photography and photographers was immense. Two of his four sons, Brett and Cole, became accomplished image makers and his grandson now carries on that same tradition, even living in the same shack on Wildcat Hill in Carmel. This book covers roughly the last 10 years of his photographs 1938-1948. The images are superbly produced and well-chosen but the text was a bit overbearing and heavy on the theory that in the last years Weston was overly concerned with death which was represented in his images. Certainly his images of Point Lobos are a bit dark and morose with pictures of dead trees and pelicans, but that's Point Lobos! During this period he also made whimsical images of his wife wearing a gas mask in the nude and playing a flute while a cat looks on with a surprised glance. Weston was full of LIFE, not death. Thirty years before his death in 1958 he made an image of a corpse at a time when his relationship with his future wife was rosy and he was spending time with his beloved sons. His final work does not seem any more concerned with death than it was in his earlier years. But, forget the text! Photography books are similar to Playboy magazines anyway - we buy them to look at the pictures, not read the text!! This is a terrific book and I can't wait to view the actual images at The Art Institute of Chicago.

the mature artist
Not just a great presentation of Weston's last productive years, the essay by the Chicago Art Institute's Curator of Photography provides the best understanding to date of what it means to be a mature artist - and why it was that Weston was viewed by his peers, including Ansel Adams, Minor White, Imogen Cunningham as the consummate photographer, the proof that photography like other forms was capable of synthesizing interior and exterior realities into works of profound emotional and aesthetic power. A great contribution! ... Read more

Reviews (5)

A Weston Must-Have
Anyone curious about Weston or wanting to own a representative selection of his work should buy this book. This IS Weston. This is not a few selected prints of his on a single theme, this is a wide representation of the best of Weston's work. One will find for oneself that ALL of Weston's pictures are about passion, that's what makes a picture a Weston. Here in this book are beautifully reproduced plates of his finest images, every one exuding shape and energy, and exquisite composition, none just ordinary. There are images of factories, fields, sand, wood and also the human body, all of which have been captured in all its glory by Weston. He teaches us that there is energy, art and passion in an amazing number of ways. Don't miss this fine book.

The first time
It was a nude Weston's photo of Tina Modoti, layed down on a rural house floor, in México, that had put me on the trail of both. Since then I've been delighted with the sensibility and the astonishing "color" of the B&W photos of them, nudes bodies, "nude" nature, what ever... It was the first time, almost ten years ago.

Best Overall Volume of Edward Weston's Work
Review Summary: Edward Weston was trained as a portrait photographer and expanded his vision to include many natural shapes, including seashells, nudes, vegetables, trees, landscapes, and eroded rocks. He also did a little industrial photography, where the forms he saw also revealed pure shapes of interest to him. These shapes usually had a modernist feel to them that brings to mind Plato's theory of forms, pure ideas behind what we see every day. This book is fine overview of all phases of Mr. Weston's career, and contains many interesting and valuable essays about his career. The book is improved by having over 80 images that had not been published before this volume. The 320 duotone images are on very fine paper and are extremely well reproduced. Many would have benefited from being printed in larger sizes. If you decide to own only one book of Edward Weston's work, I suggest you choose this one.

Viewer Caution: This book contains many nude images of women, men and children that would surpass what would allow the material to obtain an R rating as a motion picture.

Review: Edward Weston's photography reveals a personal fascination with form, shape and shadow that provide a unique vision into the natural world. He was especially intrigued to see how the shapes of one object or subject could complement another. For example, his female nudes are often posed outdoors in sand dunes or beach settings where the gentle curves play off of one another. Where he focuses on eroded rocks, each one combines with another to express the equivalent of an abstract sculpture, standing out exposed by the erosion around the harder rock that forms the image.

While his landscapes could be every bit as majestic as Ansel Adams's best work, Weston's tastes and interests developed mostly independent of the leading photographers of his time. That independence gave him a greater versatility as a photographer and a more personal style. Few would mistake his ability to locate the patterns within nature and human-made objects for the work of any other photographer. To me, the artist closest to his vision was Georgia O'Keeffe.

My favorite images from this book include: Ruth Shaw, a portrait, 1922; Armco Steel, 1922; Nude, 1925; Dancer, 1927; Chambered Nautilus, 1927; Cypress, Point Lobos, 1929; Bedpan, 1930; Pepper, 1930; Soil Erosion, Carmel Valley, 1932; Church at "E" Town, 1933; Nude, 1935 (first one); Bug Tracks in Sand, 1935; Whale Vertebrae, 1934; Dunes, Oceano, 1936; Nude Series of Charis, Oceano, 1936; Zabriskie Point, 1937; Tree, Lake Tenaya, 1937; Point Lobos, 1940; Dillard King, Monteagle, Tennessee, 1941; Civilian Defense, 1941; and Nude, 1945.

While you look at these works, you will imagine that Edward Weston is at your side . . . pointing out details that you might not have noticed. His photography always has that character of being a reflection of his eye, rather than what the casual observer would naturally see. Both realities have equal validity, but your mind and eye will prefer Weston's.

In the biographical material, you will learn about his weakness for changing partners and how that helped to provide his muse. Many of the models for his female nudes are his lovers (including his second wife, Charis) and his nudes of children are of his son. His passion for Tina Modotti brought him to Mexico and helped draw his attention to many fascinating scenes.

After you finish enjoying this work, I suggest that you think about what inspires you. What would you be happiest and most proud being remembered for as your source of inspiration? How can you express yourself in more personal ways that show your most inner self?

May your passion inspire the goodness in others!

MUSCAE VOLITANTES - FLYING FLIES
Weston is one of the neglected visual diarists of the twentieth century. His distinction, for this viewer, is the extraordinary warmth - and, ironically, color - of his voluminous subjects, all presented with a kind of boylike, off-the-cuff innocence. There is some experimentation, but what strikes one in this comprehensive selection is the full-grown vision evidenced from the start. A great, emotive stylist, who, like O' Keeffe, calls us back to the humbling beauty of nature's elegance and strangeness. There is a medical/Latin phrase - muscae volitantes (literally flying flies) - which denotes the "floaters" we see but don't see before our eyes in normal everyday life. This, comprehensively, defines Weston's grasp. Unlike, say Ansel Adams or Man Ray (wonderful observers), this is a book with a beer in its hand - an inciting, inviting book that will prompt you to look into Weston's scribblings, his biography, his angelic forces.

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