Edward Weston

a group of 4 Cat Studies, comprising Joseph ('Essimo JoJo S'), 'Rosemary Syringa,' 'FDR Weston,' and 'Charis and Cats,' the first signed 'Weston,' 3 titled, and the fourth annotated by the photographer in pencil on the reverse, matted, 1943-45 (4)

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; and

The Oakland Museum, February - March 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; and

Rochester, George Eastman House, April - September 2005

These prints:

Kathy Kelsey Foley, Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister (The Dayton Art Institute, 1978, in conjunction with the exhibition), pp. 14 and 59

Alexander Lee Nyerges, Edward Weston: A Photographer's Love of Life (The Dayton Art Institute, 2004, in conjunction with the exhibition), pls. 84-87

Other prints of these images:

Conger 1786 and 1790

These early prints, on heavy single-weight paper with a surface sheen, are in generally very good condition. All are somewhat rubbed at the edges, with some tiny nicks, and they have soft handling creases that do not break the emulsion. 'Charis and Cats' has a tiny indentation in the upper right quadrant that does not break the emulsion, and the following annotation is on the reverse: 'Charis and some of their cats! Shutterspeed too b [cut off] with stop movement [cut off].'
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Weston and Charis Wilson were great lovers of cats, and their small house on Wildcat Hill was nearly overrun with them by the 1940s.  It has been noted that with the outbreak of the Second World War, Weston had little choice but to work at home, and as a result, he turned to new subjects, cats among them.  Weston wrote to his sister in late 1944, 'Am all set to start a new epoch in my photo-life--emphasis on cats--Also Charis will start writing about cats--our cats--should be a best seller.  No fancy cats allowed, just plain "alley" cats' (quoted in Edward Weston: A Photographer's Love of Life, p. 286).   The impetus for the book was to document, in writing and photography, the life and behavior of a large group of cats.  Although Weston began photographing the cats with a Graflex, which allowed him to photograph them quickly, he soon developed techniques that enabled him to use his standard 8 x 10 camera.  Charis was known to butter their whiskers in an effort to still them briefly, while Weston utilized tricks from his days photographing babies--a high-pitched squeak that would make the cats pause and look up long enough to be snapped.  Many of Weston's cat photographs would be published in the 1947 book, The Cats of Wildcat Hill, which was published by Duell, Sloan & Pearce.  The group of prints offered here are a testament to Weston's humanity and his love of cats of all sorts.

Conger notes that the photograph of Jo-Jo in the picture frame, as well as the study of F. D. R. Weston lounging in a basket, are cropped from larger negatives (cf. Conger 1786 and 1790).   Conger locates a handful of other prints of Jo-Jo in institutional collections, but only one print of F. D. R. Weston, in the Edward Weston Archive at the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson.  The Center does not own prints of Rosemary Syringa, or Charis with the cats, and as of this writing, the prints of those images offered here are the only ones that have been located.