Edward Weston

mounted, initialed and dated by the photographer in pencil on the mount, titled by him in pencil on the reverse, matted, 1941

The photographer to his sister, Mary Weston Seaman

By descent to her daughter, Jeannette Seaman

By descent to her nephew, John W. Longstreth

The Dayton Art Institute, Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister, January - March 1978, and traveling to:

New York, International Center of Photography, July - September 1978; and

The Oakland Museum, February - March 1979

The Dayton Art Institute, Edward Weston: A Photographer's Love of Life, February - July 2004, and traveling to:

Oregon, Portland Art Museum, September - November 2004

Omaha, Joslyn Art Museum, January - April 2005; and

Rochester, George Eastman House, April - September 2005

This print:

Kathy Kelsey Foley, Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister (The Dayton Art Institute, 1978, in conjunction with the exhibition), p. 53

Alexander Lee Nyerges, Edward Weston: A Photographer's Love of Life (The Dayton Art Institute, 2004, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 58

Another print of this image:

Conger 1558

This luminous early print, on paper with a surface sheen and mounted to a thick, buff-colored board that has been trimmed to within one inch of the photograph, is in generally excellent condition. When examined in raking light, age-appropriate silvering is visible, as well as a tiny bump that appears to be a disruption in the emulsion in the lower right quadrant of the print. This is not visible when the photograph is viewed under normal conditions. The mount exhibits age-darkening. On the reverse, there are 10 circular paper remnants, possibly from a prior mounting or display. There is a number '2' in ink and an annotation, 'EWP118,' in pencil in unidentified hands on the reverse.
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.

In February of 1941, through the connections of his friend Merle Armitage, Edward Weston received a commission from the fine book publisher, the Limited Editions Club, to illustrate a new edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.  The Limited Editions Club, founded in 1929, had over the years commissioned a number of important artists, including Matisse and Picasso, to create illustrations for classic works of literature, but the use of photographs in Weston's day was a novel idea. 

Setting out in the spring of 1941, Weston and Charis Wilson traveled across the United States.  As Weston authority Amy Conger relates, by the time they returned to Carmel early in 1942, Weston had taken some 800 to 900 pictures for the project, and dozens of Graflex portraits.  He sent the Limited Editions Club a selection of 73 or 74; in the end, 49 were chosen for the book.  Weston added his own choice of verses from Leaves of Grass to many of the pictures, some of which were used alongside the photographs in the published 2-volume set, others of which were not (cf. Conger, pp. 35-38).  

The selection of photographs in this and the following 13 lots, which Weston sent to his sister May, represent the largest selection of these Leaves of Grass photographs to come to auction.  Some of the pictures are one of only a handful of examples; others may be the only print extant.  Conger has noted that these pictures have been too often ignored in the whole of Weston's oeuvre: as she so aptly states, 'many of them are too modern, and some demand too much from the viewer.  Many of his compositions can be seen as anticipating the New Topographics movement of the seventies--using clean, geometric forms and a wide angle, isolated point of view, as well as a lack of edge activity' (p. 37). 

Weston and Charis Wilson spent several days at the Grand Canyon in June of 1941.  Charis remembered later that upon their arrival at the Grand Canyon 'We spent a week driving up and down the west rim and then the east rim and in wet and hazy weather, looking into the canyon from all available viewpoints. . .' (Through Another Lens, p. 37).  Despite unpredictable desert weather, Weston is known to have made 17 negatives during those several days at the Grand Canyon, the present photograph among them.

This image, looking out into the seemingly endless canyon, shows the immensity of scale and the range of colors and textures that so fascinated Weston and appealed to his photographic sensibilities.  He has placed the horizon line near the top edge of the print, thus reducing the sky to a thin sliver of puffy white clouds.  Taken in Weston's characteristic sharp focus, the photograph reveals in infinite detail the striations that chart the canyon's history and the desert shrubs that dot its landscape.  

Conger locates only one print of this image, in the Edward Weston Archive at the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson.   At the time of this writing, no other prints of this image have been located.