Edward Weston

mounted, initialed and dated by the photographer in pencil on the mount, signed and titled by him in pencil on the reverse, matted, 1931

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

This print:

Kathy Kelsey Foley, Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister (The Dayton Art Institute, 1978, in conjunction with the exhibition), pp. 19, 24, and 45

Alexander Lee Nyerges, Edward Weston: A Photographer's Love of Life (The Dayton Art Institute, 2004), p. 86 and pl. 25

Other prints of this image:

Conger 652

Beaumont Newhall, Supreme Instants: The Photographs of Edward Weston (Tucson: Center for Creative Photography, 1986, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 37

Jennifer A. Watts, ed., Edward Weston, A Legacy (Los Angeles: The Huntington Library, 2003, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 7

Judith Hochberg, Sarah Lowe, Michael Mattis, and Dody Weston Thompson, Edward Weston: Life Work (Revere, 2004), pl. 37

André Kertész and Avant Garde Photography of the Twenties and Thirties (London: Annely Juda Fine Art, 1999, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 30

This print, on a slightly glossy paper, is in generally very good condition. The following are visible in raking light: a few small deposits of the photographer's original retouching; faint, small surface scratches; and small pencil-point-sized light impressions that do not break the emulsion. The bottom edge of the print has a few very small, inconsequential chips. The photograph is mounted to a slick, cream-colored board that has been trimmed to within 1 1/8-inch of the photograph. There are two light pencil registration marks at the mount edges. On the reverse are two old linen tape hinges.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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The cabbage sprout photograph was a favorite of Edward Weston's sister Mary, from the time she saw it at Weston's one-man show at the Delphic Gallery in 1932.  May and her family had moved to New York City around 1930, and she took great pride in the exhibitions of her brother's work there.  That she was present for the opening of his one-man exhibition at the Delphic in October of 1930 made him very happy.  Weston wrote in his daybook for October 17^th,

'A wire from Alma Reed [the gallery owner]: "Opening a real success--all your old friends and sister present--many new admirers--sold long slender shell--everything most promising--Felicidades."

'This brought me great joy.  Especially "sister present"!  It seems, and is, a reunion with her--' (Daybooks, California, 17 October 1930).

During the run of the second New York exhibition, held at the Delphic Gallery in the spring of 1932, May acted as Edward's stand-in, spending many afternoons at the gallery, talking to visitors, and sending news of who came, and what they said.  'Sister has written me almost every day,' Weston wrote in his journal.  'She has been a sort of assistant curator for my show' (Daybooks, California, 11 March 1932). When asked by Weston which images were her favorite, she responded, 'It is simply bewildering to try to decide so I have marked a number . . . The Cabbage Sprout Magnified I have held to from the first' (quoted in Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister, p. 7). 

Weston began work with cabbage in 1931, and almost from the beginning had planned to use it in a future show.  On April 23^rd, he wrote, 'For the first time in months, I am excited to work, and by "still-life,"--though I do not like the designation still-life, a misnomer for my most living artichokes, peppers, onions, cabbage!  Cabbage has renewed my interest, marvelous hearts, like carved ivory, leaves with veins like flame, with forms curved like the most exquisite shell.  These forms--which Sonya discovered--came to me, coincident with a letter from Alma Reed in which my next N. Y. exhibit is discussed!' 

On April 28^th, he recorded, 'I worked again with the cabbage fragment, bettering my first efforts.  I enlarged this bit, of an inch high, to almost 8 x 10.  It will go into my next exhibit' (Daybooks, California, 28 April 1931). 

This image was chosen by Weston for other important exhibitions, in addition to the Delphic Studios show 1932: the Morgan Camera Shop in Los Angeles, 1939; and the retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art in 1946.

Weston's negative log at the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, indicates that, of the projected edition of 50 from this negative (42V), 19 prints were made.  In addition to two prints in the Edward Weston Archive at the Center for Creative Photography (one from the collection of Sonya Noskowiak), Conger locates prints in the following institutions: the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Huntington Library in San Marino, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and at Utah State University.  There is also a Project Print at Santa Cruz.