Edward Weston

mounted, signed and dated in pencil on the mount, titled by the photographer and with annotations in pencil on the reverse, framed, 1936

Collection of Cole Weston, the photographer's son, Carmel

Private collection, New York, late 1990s

Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, 2000

Private collection, New York

Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, 2005

Conger 941

Jennifer A. Watts, ed., Edward Weston: A Legacy (San Marino: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, 2003), pl. 11

James Enyeart, Edward Weston's California Landscapes (Boston, 1984), pl. 73

Kurt Markus, Dune: Edward & Brett Weston (Kalispell, 2003), p. 5

Sarah M. Lowe, Dody Weston Thompson, et al., Edward Weston: Life Work; Photographs from the Collection of Judith G. Hochberg and Michael P. Mattis (Revere, 2003), pl. 73

Brett Abbott, In Focus: Edward Weston (The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005), pl. 74

This dramatic print of one of Weston’s best known dune studies is rendered with striking clarity and nuance. Passages that show the sunlit dunes in great detail alternate with inky black bands of shadow. This photograph is on semi-glossy paper, and faint, uneven silvering is barely visible in the dark areas when the print is examined in raking light. A small area of loss in the foreground has been skillfully retouched, which is not noticeable when viewing the print from a normal distance. A close examination of the print reveals some minute chipping of the emulsion along the left edge. In high raking light, faint scratches and a few tiny raised areas, likely particles trapped between print and board during mounting, are just visible. The off-white mount has been trimmed on the left and right sides to an overall dimension of 14 by 13 ½ inches, roughly. The front of the mount is evenly discolored, likely due to previous contact with a non-archival mat. The area of the mount where the photograph is signed and dated appears not to have been covered by a mat and is lighter in tone. In the upper left corner on the reverse of the mount, what is likely Weston’s negative number (‘SO’) is only partially visible because of the trimming of the mount. The word ‘Receding’ (circled) is inscribed in an unidentified hand in pencil. Also on the reverse are linen tape remains along the upper edge and scattered soiling.
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With its bold alternation of black and gray values, punctuated by near-white highlights on the dune ridges, the photograph offered here is one of the most dramatically graphic studies made by Weston at Oceano, and one of the best known images in his body of work.  Weston chose it for his 1946 retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art, and it was reproduced in Nancy Newhall’s companion volume, The Photographs of Edward Weston.  It was also shown in The World of Edward Weston exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution in 1956.       

Located near Pismo Beach and San Louis Obispo, Oceano is the largest and most impressive coastal dune area in the state.  Weston first photographed there in 1934, in the company of fellow-photographer Willard van Dyke, but it was not until his more extended visit of 1936 that he did his most important work.  With his lover and eventual wife, Charis Wilson, he camped there several days in an abandoned guest cabin, sharing meals with a group of free-thinkers known as ‘Dunites’ who had taken over the area.  The ever-shifting landscape provided Weston with a wealth of subject matter, and he set out each morning with his unwieldy camera and tripod and a case of loaded film holders.  The inspiration he received from the place is evident in his photographs, and while his images were all made within walking distance of his cabin, they are surprisingly diverse in tonality and mood.