‘Since the first of the year I have done several negatives for myself: of a cabbage . . .This time it was a single leaf I used, achieving the strongest, most abstract results.’
The photograph offered here is from a concentrated series of cabbage leaf studies Edward Weston made in the first months of 1931. Weston describes this series in the 23 April 1931 entry in his Daybooks: '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' (Daybooks II, p. 213). On April 28th, he further 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.’
Cabbage Leaf captures the delineated details of its subject with brilliant clarity, from the light dancing on the crinoline-like folds of the vegetable to the hint of decay and the tiny tears to the leaf from Weston’s handling. In his various cabbage leaf studies, Weston continuously experimented with the position of his camera and the placement of his pleated vegetables. This simple composition belies the complexity of its conception and its making, the years-long evolution of Weston's own vision, and his countless trials with objects before his camera.
Weston included examples of his cabbage studies in several early exhibitions, including his one-man show at New York’s Delphic Gallery in 1932 and his retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art in 1946. The exhibition label on the reverse of the photograph offered here indicates it was featured in Weston’s 1939 solo show organized by The Photographic Arts Society in San Diego.
The print offered here – on photographic paper with a glossy surface, mounted to slick white card, and with Weston’s robust, full signature – represents the ideal early presentation of an image from 1931. When Weston first began his still life studies in the late 1920s, he printed these images on paper with a matte surface, the default choice for art photographers of the day. By the early 1930s, however, Weston switched to photographic paper with a harder, glossier finish that allowed a greater amount of a negative’s original detail to be rendered in a print.
'No other surface is now to be thought of. I can print much deeper than heretofore, with no fear of losing shadows, or muddying half tones by drying down: or I can use a more contrasty grade of paper, resulting in amazingly rich blacks yet retaining brilliant whites...’
Although one of Weston’s most well-known images, early prints of Cabbage Leaf (39V) are decidedly rare. It is believed that no other print of this image has appeared at auction. According to his negative log, now in the collection of the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Weston records only two prints of this image out of his projected edition of 50. While Conger cites several examples in institutional collections, these appear to be later prints by Brett Weston from 1951-52, likely made for the portfolio Edward Weston: Fiftieth Anniversary.
This photograph comes from the collection of Shirley Carter Burden (1908-1989), photographer, publisher, collector, and arts patron. A descendant of Cornelius Vanderbilt, Burden was a notable fixture on both the East and West Coasts. After stints in film and commercial photography, beginning in 1950 Burden pursued his photography solely as fine art. He developed relationships with Minor White, Edward Steichen, and Dorothea Lange – photographers with whom he collaborated as well as collected (see Lot 24) – that had a lifelong impact. In 1955, Steichen invited Burden, who was living in Beverly Hills, to help select photographs from the Los Angeles area for the ambitious 1955 exhibition Family of Man presented at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. It was Steichen who encouraged Burden’s own extensive work with photographic essays, including God Is My Life (1959) and I Wonder Why (1964). Among the many institutions Burden supported were the Morgan Library; Aperture, where he was chairman of the board of trustees; The Museum of Modern Art, where he was chairman of the Photography Committee; and the New York Public Library, where the Shirley C. Burden papers are now housed.