Edward Weston

mounted, signed and dated in pencil on the mount, titled and numbered ‘LA-MGM-17G’ in pencil on the reverse, 1939

Christie’s Los Angeles, 26 June 1997, Sale 8674, Lot 192

Conger 1440

Ben Maddow, Edward Weston: Fifty Years (Aperture, 1973), p. 220

Charis and Edward Weston, California and the West (Aperture reprint, 1978), p. 175

Theodore Stebbins, Jr., et al., Edward Weston: Photography and Modernism (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1999), p. 113

Jennifer A. Watts, ed., Edward Weston: A Legacy (Huntington Library, 2003), pl. 109

Alexander Lee Nyerges, Edward Weston: A Photographer’s Love of Life (Dayton Art Institute), p. 223

Terence Pitts and Manfred Heiting, Edward Weston 1886-1958 (Taschen, 2004), p. 179

Amy Conger, The Form of the Nude (New York, 2005), p. 110

Jennifer A. Watts and Claudia Bohn-Spector, This Side of Paradise: Body and Landscape in Los Angeles Photographs (Huntington Library, 2008), p. 145

This photograph illustrates Weston's highly refined skills, both as a photographer and as a printer. The print is remarkable for its clarity and its portrayal of minute detail. The surface textures -- the grain of the various wood surfaces, the galvanized metal dustbin, the dusty ground, and the pliable bodies of the dummies -- are all rendered with precision. The print is on semi-glossy paper and in near-excellent condition. When examined closely in high raking light, a surface scratch is visible in the body of the left dummy, although this does not appear to break the emulsion. The print is mounted to a sheet of thin buff-colored board which has age-darkened somewhat at the periphery. There is circular spot, presumably caused by a water droplet, on the lower portion of the right mount edge --- this is distant from the image. Weston's pencil signature and date on the front of the mount are bold and clear, as are the title and negative number 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 January of 1939 Edward Weston was given access, by friends Warren Newcombe and Cedric Gibbons, to photograph the storage lot of MGM Studios.  He made a number of photographs on this visit (cf. Conger 1428-1440), but the image offered here is perhaps the best known and most enigmatic.  In California and the West, Charis Weston recounts that they came upon the dummies, resting on a wooden shelf, at the end of the day.  She pulled out one dummy, which Weston photographed.  It was when she pulled down a second dummy, with a 'fractured leg,' that Weston made the image offered here. 

Conger locates six prints of this image in institutional collections: the Center for Creative Photography; Huntington Library; Indiana University Art Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art; and a Project Print at University of California, Santa Cruz.