- 48
Edward Weston
Description
- Edward Weston
- HANDS AGAINST KIMONO (TINA MODOTTI)
- Platinum or palladium print
- 9 x 7 1/2 inches
Provenance
Collection of Vittorio Vidali (1900-1983)
By descent to his son Carlos Vidali
Sotheby's New York, 8 May 1984, Sale 5156, Lot 352
The Weston Gallery, Carmel
Collection of 7-Eleven, Inc.
Sotheby's New York, Photographs from The Collection of 7-Eleven, Inc., 5 April 2000, Sale 7448, Lot 12
Literature
Nancy Newhall, ed., The Daybooks of Edward Weston, Volume I, Mexico (Aperture, 1973), pl. 6
Ben Maddow, Edward Weston: Fifty Years (Aperture, 1973), p. 106
Modotti y Weston: Mexicanidad (Fundación Pedro Barrié de la Maza, 1999), pp. 40-1
Manfred Heiting, ed., Edward Weston (Köln, 2004), p. 80
Passion and Precision: Photographs from the Collection of Margaret W. Weston (Monterey Museum of Art, 2003), p. 16
John Szarkowski, The Photographer's Eye (The Museum of Modern Art, 1966), p. 49
Condition
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.
Catalogue Note
The present image was chosen by Weston for three of his most important exhibitions: the Aztec Land Gallery show in Mexico City, 1924; his Los Angeles County Museum of Art show, 1927; and his retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art, 1946. The print offered here comes originally from the collection of Vittorio Vidali, Modotti’s lover in Mexico in the last years of her life. Believed to be one of only two platinum prints extant, the present print is signed, dated, and inscribed ‘Mexico, D. F.,’ by Weston on the reverse. Conger locates two prints of the image in institutions: a silver print in the collection of the George Eastman House and a Project Print at the University of California at Santa Cruz. The second platinum print is in a private collection.
In his ‘Dating Edward Weston’s Tina on the Azotea,’ Thomas Knight proposes that the Modotti kimono studies, if taken together, show Weston’s evolution from Pictorialism to modernism. The series begins with the present image, a rich, matte-surface print with hints of Japonisme; then moves to photographs of Modotti only partially robed in the kimono; then to a study of her from the back, nude on the azotea in the brilliant Mexican sun, the kimono tossed to one side; and finally, to Modotti fully and frontally nude, stretched out on a blanket, the kimono gone (History of Photography, Vol. 20, No. 4, Winter 1996).