Weston, Edward

Weston, Edward,

1886–1958, American photographer, b. Highland Park, Ill. Weston began to make photographs in Chicago parks in 1902, and his works were first exhibited in 1903 at the Art Institute of Chicago. Three years later he moved to California and opened a portrait studio in a Los Angeles suburb. The Western landscape soon became his principal subject matter. In the 1930s, Weston and several other photographers, including Ansel AdamsAdams, Ansel,
1902–84, American photographer, b. San Francisco. He began taking photographs in the High Sierra and Yosemite Valley, with which his name is permanently associated, becoming professional in 1930.
..... Click the link for more information. , Imogen CunninghamCunningham, Imogen,
1883–1976, American photographer, b. Portland, Oreg. Cunningham began taking pictures in 1901. After study abroad she opened a studio in Seattle in 1910 and for six decades produced an extraordinarily varied body of work including many strong, exquisite
..... Click the link for more information. , and Willard van Dyke, formed the f/64 group, which greatly influenced the aesthetics of American photography (see photography, stillphotography, still,
science and art of making permanent images on light-sensitive materials.

See also photographic processing; motion picture photography; motion pictures.
..... Click the link for more information. ). In 1937, Weston received the first Guggenheim Fellowship awarded to a photographer, which freed him from earning a living as a portraitist. The works for which he is famous—sharp, stark, brilliantly printed images of sand dunes, nudes, vegetables, rock formations, trees, cacti, shells, water, and human faces are among the finest of 20th-century photographs; their influence on modern art remains inestimable. Weston made his last photographs at his beloved Point Lobos, Calif., during the decade from 1938 to 1948, the year he was stricken with Parkinson's disease. His second son, Brett Weston, 1911–93, and his fourth son, Cole Weston, 1919–2003, were both photographers in their father's tradition.

Bibliography

See The Daybooks of Edward Weston, ed. by N. Newhall (2 vol., 1961–66), The Flame of Recognition, ed. by N. Newhall (1965), and My Camera on Point Lobos (1968); N. Newhall, The Photographs of Edward Weston (1946); C. Weston, Edward Weston: Fifty Years (1973); G. Mora, ed., Edward Weston: Forms of Passion (1996); D. Travis, Edward Weston: The Last Years in Carmel (2001).

Weston, Edward

(1886–1958) photographer; born in Highland Park, Ill. Fascinated by the landscapes, produce, and people of California and Mexico, he took portraits to support his art, setting up the first of many studios in 1911. Commercially successful, in 1927 he began his studies to capture in close-ups the sensuousness of nudes and vegetables. From 1928 to 1933 he took landscape pictures of deserts, sand dunes, and beach foliage, receiving the first photographer's Guggenheim in 1937.