Edward Weston

mounted, initialed, dated, and inscribed with a copyright symbol by the photographer in pencil on the mount, numbered (partially obscured) and inscribed with the Limited Editions Club copyright by him and numbered in unidentified hands in pencil and with a typed Leaves of Grass title label on the reverse, matted, 1941 

The photographer to his sister, Mary Weston Seaman

By descent to her daughter, Jeannette Seaman

By descent to her nephew, John W. Longstreth

The Dayton Art Institute, Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister, January - March 1978, and traveling to:

New York, International Center of Photography, July - September 1978

The Oakland Museum, Spring 1979

The Dayton Art Institute, Edward Weston: A Photographer's Love of Life, February - July 2004, and traveling to:

Oregon, Portland Art Museum, September - November 2004

Omaha, Joslyn Art Museum, January - April 2005

This print:

Kathy Kelsey Foley, Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister (The Dayton Art Institute, 1978, in conjunction with the exhibition), p. 57

Alexander Lee Nyerges, Edward Weston: A Photographer's Love of Life (The Dayton Art Institute, 2004, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 76

Other prints of this image:

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, with illustrations by Edward Weston, the Paddington Press reprint of the 1942 Limited Editions Club edition (New York, 1970), facing p. 66

Jennifer A. Watts, ed., Edward Weston, A Legacy (Los Angeles: The Huntington Library, 2003, in conjunction with the exhibition), fig. 50

This photograph, on slightly cool, semi-matte paper, is in generally good condition. There is a faint patina of silvering in the darkest areas of the print, a typical indication of the photograph's age. As for any print whose primary purpose was at one time publication, the surface shows scattered imperfections, including a spot or two of rubbing and occasional indentations, largely visible only in raking light. There is slight, very faint craquelure in the upper right quadrant, visible only in raking light, as well as two or three spots where the print has taken on a high sheen, possibly from glass offsetting. There are a handful of miniscule chips along the print's edges. The photograph is on a heavy-weight, cream-colored mount that has darkened with age. On the reverse, along one vertical edge, there are the remains of paper and adhesive, likely from a sheet of paper overlay that was at one time attached. There is also a paper remnant along the bottom edge, on the reverse, where a caption may have been attached. Portions of two linen hinges on the reverse cover the photographer's negative number and part of the typed label. The negative number reads '5W' It is likely that the covered portion of the number would begin with a 'P,' and be followed by an additional number, which would be consistent with the numbering of other prints from the 'Leaves of Grass' series.
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The label reads:

'BROOKLYN CROSSING FERRY:

'.......................................................................W'

Weston made two exposures from the roof of the St. George's Hotel in Brooklyn, one a view toward Manhattan, with the Brooklyn Bridge in the distance (Conger 1660), and the present image taken from a different vantage point, showing the waterfront and Fort Jay.  While in New York, Weston was particularly interested in photographing the sprawling views of the city from building rooftops.  As in the present photograph, he showed the many, varied aspects of New York's constantly changing landscape.  Radically different from their life in Carmel, the pace of New York astonished Weston.  As he wrote to his sister, 'It's hard to write from N.Y.  Too much going on, no place to hide!' (quoted in Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister, p. 57).

This image was published in the Leaves of Grass volume.  Conger locates no prints of the image in any institutional collections.