Edward Weston

a group of 3 photographs, comprising 'Barn--Winter Zero Swartsel's, Near Farmsville,' 'Winter Zero Swartsel's, Middletown,' and Use Loves Way, Middletown, the first mounted, initialed and dated by the photographer in pencil on the mount, titled and numbered '041-W2-6' by the photographer in pencil on the reverse, the second titled by the photographer and the third annotated in an unidentified hand in pencil on the reverse, each matted, 1941 (3)

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), p. 56

Alexander Lee Nyerges, Edward Weston: A Photographer's Love of Life (The Dayton Art Institute, 2004, in conjunction with the exhibition), pls. 71-73

'Barn--Winter Zero Swartsel's, Near Farmsville'--This photograph, on paper with a slight surface sheen, is in generally excellent condition. Upon close inspection, light edge-fading is visible. In raking light, slight silvering is visible in the darkest areas of the print. The photograph is mounted to a smooth, cream-colored board that is lightly age-darkened on the front and back. The corners and edges are lightly bumped and there is minor soiling on the reverse. 'Winter Zero Swartsel's, Middletown'--This unmounted, warm-toned print is in generally very good condition. Visible in raking light is a single vertical wave at the center of the print, and a small crease at the bottom right corner. This print measures 4¼ by 3 1/8 inches. Use Loves Way, Middletown-- This unmounted, warm-toned print is in fair condition. There are two long, vertical creases at the left edge and the center of the print. In raking light a number of faint handling creases are visible. Along the bottom edge, there is minor chipping. The print measures 4½ by 3¾ inches.
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The three prints offered here were taken at the farm of bottle artist Winter Zero Swartsel, near Farmersville, Ohio.  In September of 1941, Weston and Charis Wilson arrived in Middletown, Ohio, to stay with May's son, Joseph Seaman, and his wife Flo.  After hearing a story about a man who covered his large farm with bottle trees, Weston and Joe set out to find the farm in nearby Farmersville.  Weston took Charis back the next day, which she recalled in her memoir: 'Swartsel's farm covered several undulating acres of green pasture cropped close by sheep, and set out on this bareness like orchard trees were posts leaning this way and that and laced with wire that supported all colors and shapes of bottles and jars.  There were brown beer bottles, flat whiskey bottles, little blue Vicks VapoRub jars, milk bottles, green wine bottles, two-gallon jugs.  Some were whole, some broken.  All were fixed by wire ends stuck into the bottle necks so the glassy fruit pointed up like pegs on a coat tree.  There were twenty-five to fifty bottles to a tree and three to four hundred trees spread over the orchard' (Through Another Lens, p. 272).  In addition to the bottle trees, there were black-painted metal silhouettes of animals and figures, sculptures, and an abundance of signs and painted mottoes that were hung around the farm and on the buildings.

In her memoir, Charis Wilson recounts the fate of the bottle farm.  Hoping to preserve his creations, Winter Zero Swartsel willed his farm and its many bottle trees and curios to the Ohio Historical Society, which, sadly, was not interested.  As a significant tourist attraction, however, the site was maintained by the city of Farmersville until the late 1950s, when its contents were auctioned off and the buildings torn down to make way for a community center.  Winter Zero Swartsel was largely forgotten until the 1978 exhibition of Edward Weston photographs organized by the Dayton Art Institute, Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister.   A local reporter wrote a full-page story about Swartsel and his bottle farm in the Dayton newspaper (ibid., pp. 273-74).  

The present photographs were not reproduced in the Leaves of Grass volume.  Conger notes that Weston made 21 negatives at the bottle farm, but very few prints from these negatives appear to have survived.  The Edward Weston Archive at the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, owns prints of four other Swartsel images (Conger 1645 - 1648).  The entry for Conger 1645 mentions the three photographs offered here, prints of which the Center does not own.  At the time of this writing, no other prints of the present three photographs have been located.