Edward Weston 1886-1958

Private Collection, New York

Paul Katz

Acquired by Margaret W. Weston from the above, 1979

American Embassy, Geneva, 1994 - 1996, as part of the 'ART in Embassies' program

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

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

This print:

Passion and Precision: Photographs from the Collection of Margaret W. Weston (Monterey Museum of Art, 2003, in conjunction with the exhibition), p. 19

Carl Haenlein, Anton Josef Trcka, Edward Weston, Helmut Newton: The Artificial of the Real (Kestner Gesellschaft, 1998, in conjunction with the exhibition), p. 91

The other print of this image:

Conger 70

Amy Conger, Edward Weston: The Form of the Nude (London, 2005), p. 29

Beaumont Newhall, Supreme Instants (Boston, 1986, in conjunction with the exhibition originating at the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson), pl. 7

Edward Weston: La Mirada de la Ruptura (Mexico City, 1994), p. 67

Peter C. Bunnell, ed,. Edward Weston: On Photography (Salt Lake City, 1983), unpaginated

Manfred Heiting, ed., Edward Weston (Köln, 2004), p. 49

Edward Weston: Portraits (Aperture 140, 1995), p. 19

Margaret Hooks, Tina Modotti: Photographer and Revolutionary (New York, 1993), p. 47

Valentina Agostinis, Tina Modotti: Gli Anni Luminosi (Pordenone, Italy, 1992), p. 42

The photograph offered here is one of the earliest photographs taken by Edward Weston of Tina Modotti, a woman whose face and figure would inspire countless memorable Weston photographs in the coming years.  The photograph was taken within a year of their first meeting, which had occurred at least by 1921 and may have in fact taken place, if only on a social level, as early as 1919 or 1920.  At the time the present photograph was made, each was married to someone else: Edward Weston to the former Flora Chandler, the mother of his four children, Tina Modotti to the poet Roubaix de l'Abrie Richey.  Precisely when, and how, Weston and Modotti moved beyond mere friendship and into their passionate physical relationship is not known.  And although the circumstances under which the present photograph was taken are not certain, it seems safe to assume that by the time the photograph was made, Modotti and Weston had consummated their affair, or would do so in the immediate future.  

The erotic content of the photograph is almost palpable.  In 'The Letters from Tina Modotti to Edward Weston' (The Archive, Center for Creative Photography Research Series, Number 22, January 1986), Amy Stark (Rule) pairs this image with a fragment of an undated letter from Modotti which Weston carefully re-copied:

'''One night after--all day I have been intoxicated with the memory of last night and overwhelmed with the beauty and madness of it--I need but to close my eyes to find myself not once more but still near you in that beloved darkness--with the flavor of wine yet on my lips and the impression of your mouth on mine.  Oh how wonderful to recall every moment of our hours together--fondle them and gently carry them in me like frail and precious dreams--and now while I write to you--from my still quivering senses rises an ardent desire to again kiss your eyes and mouth--my lips burn and my whole being quivers with the intensity of my desire--How can I wait until we meet again?''' (p. 11).

The photograph reproduced by Stark is a print of the image owned by the Center for Creative Photography, the University of Arizona, Tucson.  The Center's print, also platinum, is uncropped, and clearly shows the nipple of Modotti's left breast in the lower right quadrant of the composition.   The Center's print, and the print offered here, are believed to be the only two prints of this image extant.

The use of a flower to provide a richer subtext for a picture is a tradition centuries old.  Paintings from the Renaissance to Victorian times incorporated flowers as symbols, symbols that were understood by their audiences in ways that are largely forgotten today. The lily carried by the angel in countless Annunciations, for instance, has become over the centuries synonymous with the event itself.  And in the 1860s, an artist like Whistler could paint his 'White Girl' in a virginal white dress, and yet, by placing a wilted lily in her hand, imply a more complex narrative that would not have been lost on the gallery-going public.

By Edward Weston's time, this age-old language of flowers was probably obscure to both the photographer and his sitter.  The choice of a white iris for this unabashedly erotic photograph was likely happenstance, a spontaneous choice for this early memento of what was then a secret affair.  That the affair became one of the great romances, spiritual as well as physical, in Edward Weston's and Tina Modotti's lives is perhaps conveyed not in the portrait, but in the flower: the iris toward which Modotti leans is the symbol of message, and its color, white, the symbol of purity.