Edward Weston

signed, titled, and dated by the photographer in pencil on the reverse, matted, 1937

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), p. 49

Alexander Lee Nyerges, Edward Weston: A Photographer's Love of Life (The Dayton Art Institute, 2004, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 37

Other prints of this image:

Conger 1057

Jennifer A. Watts, ed., Edward Weston, A Legacy (Los Angeles: The Huntington Library, 2003, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 101

This photograph, on semi-glossy paper, is in generally very good condition. There is a faint patina of silvering in the darkest areas of the print. In raking light, a few small handling creases are visible, including a horizontal linear crease at the top right corner that slightly breaks the emulsion. The corners of the photograph are lightly bumped and have small chips and losses of emulsion. On the reverse, there is a 5 1/4-inch, linear, horizontal strip of brown paper and adhesive remains. This does not affect the front of the print.
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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Driving north from San Francisco, Weston and Charis Wilson, along with their friend Willard Van Dyke, stopped in the coastal town of Olema, near Point Reyes.  It was Weston's first trip north of San Francisco, and Ansel Adams had suggested they stop at a small Portuguese cemetery on their way north.  Charis spoke of the child's grave in California and the West: 'Up and down the weed-grown paths we wandered, examining the life-like portraits that embellished the stones.  Here was a child's grave, a cross of abalone shells laid over it, a broken statue at the head, the whole circumscribed by a white picket fence' (p. 101).  Weston positioned the grave at an angle within the picture frame so much of what lies within the white fence is obscured, with the exception of the grave marker of a small child reading a book.  This was not the first graveyard Weston had photographed--Charis noted that Weston had an arrangement early on in his career with a local sexton in Tropico who would send funeral business his way--nor would it not be his last.  Weston would become fascinated a few years later, while traveling to photograph for Leaves of Grass, with the cemeteries of New Orleans.

In addition to two prints of this image in the Edward Weston Archive at the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson (one a gift of Ansel and Virginia Adams), Conger locates four others in institutional collections: the Huntington Library, San Marino; the Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign; the University of California at Los Angeles; and a Project Print at Santa Cruz.