Edward Weston 1886-1958

Acquired by Margaret W. Weston before 1984

Hannover, Kestner Gesellschaft, Anton Josef Trcka, Edward Weston, Helmut Newton: The Artificial of the Real, March - May, 1998

San Francisco, Ansel Adams Center/Friends of Photography, Defining Modernism: Group f.64, September 2000 -June 2001; and traveling to Gainesville, Florida, Samuel P. Harn Museum, January - May 2001

Monterey Museum of Art, Passion and Precision: Photographs from the Collection of Margaret W. Weston, January - April 2003

Houston, The Museum of Fine Arts, The Modern West: American Landscapes, 1890-1950, October 2006 - January 2007

Carl Haenlein, Anton Josef Trcka, Edward Weston, Helmut Newton: The Artificial of the Real (Kestner Gesellschaft, 1998, in conjunction with the exhibition), p. 120 (this print)

Other prints of this image:

Conger 945

Merle Armitage, Edward Weston: Fifty Photographs (New York, 1947), pl. 13

Nancy Newhall, Edward Weston: The Flame of Recognition (Aperture, 1967), pp. 46-47

Ben Maddow, Edward Weston: Fifty Years (Aperture, 1973), p. 168

Jennifer A. Watts, ed., Edward Weston: A Legacy (The Huntington Library, Los Angeles, 2003, in conjunction with the exhibition), p. 127

James Enyeart, Edward Weston's California Landscapes (Boston, 1984), pl. 15

Kurt Markus, Dune: Edward & Brett Weston (Kalispell, Montana, 2003), p. 67

Amy Conger, Edward Weston: The Form of the Nude (London, 2005), p. 119

Sarah Lowe, et al., Edward Weston: Life Work (Revere, Pennsylvania, 2004), pl. 72

Manfred Heiting, ed., Edward Weston (Köln, 2004), p. 147

Therese Mulligan, Photography from 1839 to Today: George Eastman House (Köln, 2000), p. 497

Keith F. Davis, An American Century of Photography, from Dry-Plate to Digital:  The Hallmark Photographic Collection (Kansas City, 1999), p. 208

Picturing Modernity: Highlights from the Photography Collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1998, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 22

Maria Morris Hambourg and Christopher Phillips, The New Vision: Photography Between the World Wars, Ford Motor Company Collection (New York, 1989, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 117

Chorus of Light: Photographs from the Sir Elton John Collection (Atlanta, High Museum of Art, 2000, in conjunction with the exhibition), p. 166  

Weston first photographed the massive sand dunes at Oceano, California, in 1934 when he visited the area with fellow photographer Willard Van Dyke.  In his Negative Log, now in the collection of the Center for Creative Photography, Weston lists four dune studies made in 1934, and one close-up view of insect tracks in the sand made on a subsequent visit in 1935.  Weston's most significant work in the area, however, was done in 1936, when he executed his remarkable series of dune landscapes and nude studies. 

Oceano, located near Pismo Beach and San Luis Obispo, is the largest and most dramatic coastal dune area in California.  Its significant deposits of sand were brought to the area by rivers and ocean currents.  Winds push the sand into gigantic and continually changing dunes.  Today, the area enjoys protection, of a sort, as the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area. 

In 1936, Weston visited Oceano with his lover and eventual wife, Charis Wilson.  The couple stayed there several days in an abandoned guest cabin, sharing meals with a group of squatters, known as 'Dunites,' who had taken the area over.  The ever-shifting landscape provided Weston with a phenomenal wealth of subject matter, and he set out each morning with his unwieldy camera and tripod and a case of loaded film holders.  His enthusiasm for the Oceano 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.  It was likely that on this trip he produced what are arguably his best-known dune studies, including negative 47SO, known popularly as White Dunes, offered here, as well as 31SO, also present in the sale as Lot 18.