Edward West - Photographic Perfection
...getarianism, etc.). Maybe he never was much of an orthodox type man or photographer. He went back to Illinois for several months to attend the Illinois College of Photography. The inspiration behind this was to show his girlfriend, a daughter of a wealthy land-owner that he’d make money for them. He then headed back to California for good. This lead to marriage in 1909 and to two sons soon afterwards. During this time, Weston also became the founding member of the Camera Pictorialists of Los Angeles. 1911: Began a portrait studio in Tropico, California. This studio would stay open until 1922. Also 1911: He started writing articles that were published in magazines. One of these magazines was called American Photographer. His third and fourth sons were born in 1916 and 1919. Weston had always enjoyed photography as an art, but, in 1915, his visit to the San Francisco Panama Pacific Exhibition began a series of events that would lead him to a renouncement of pictorialism. At the exhibition, he viewed abstract paintings. These caused him to vow to capture “the physical quality of the objects he photographed with the sharpest truthfulness and exactitude”. Thus began a dissatisfaction with his own work. In 1922, he traveled to Ohio and took photographs of the Armco Steel Plant and then went to New York. There he met Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Charles Sheck and Georgia O’Keefe. After that, he renounced pictorialism all together. He often traveled to Mexico during the 1920s, and his photographs included nudes. One of these nudes, named Tina Modotti, would turn into his own personal love affair, breaking up his marriage. He made many photographs in Mexico. Some were published in the book Idols Behind Altars by Anita Brenner. During this time, he also began to photograph seashells, vegetables and nudes. In 1929, his first New York exhibit occurred at the Alma Reed’s Delphic Studios Gallery and later showed at Harvard Society of Contemporary Arts. His photographs were shown along with the likes of Walker Evans, Eugene Atget, Charles Sheeler, Alfred Stieglitz, and many others. In 1932, he became a Charter member, along with Ansel Adams, of the “Group f/64” Club. The club was also founded that same year. The goal of this club was to “secure maximum image sharpness of both foreground and distance”. In 1934, Weston vowed to make only unretouched portraits. He strived to be as far away from pictorialism as he could. In 1935, he initiated the Edward Weston Print of the Month Club. He offered photographs for ten dollars each. In 1937, he was awarded the first Guggenheim fellowship. In 1940, a book called California and the West featured his photographs and the text of Charis Wilson his new wife (not the nude, Tina Modotti). In 1941, Weston was commissioned by the Limited Editions Club to illustrate a new edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. Weston started suffering from Parkinson’s disease in 1946. That same year the Museum of Modern Art in New York City featured a retrospective of his work; three hundred prints were on display. To sort of sign-off from photographing, Weston went to his favorite photographing spot at Point Lobos. There he would take his last photographs (1948). For the next ten years, he supervised his two sons in the printing of Edward Weston life works. Also, in 1952, he published a Fiftieth Anniversary Portfolio. He died in 1958 at his home in Carmel. From his famous studies of the green pepper to his favorite spots at Point Lobos, Weston was mainly conce...