Edward Weston

mounted, signed, dated, and editioned '2/50' in pencil on the mount, with date and negative number '58 V' in pencil on the reverse, framed, 1933

David van Riper, El Mochuelo Gallery, Santa Barbara

Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, 2007

Conger 723

Ben Maddow, Edward Weston: Fifty Years (Millerton, 1973), p. 150 (inverted)

Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., Karen Quinn, and Leslie Furth, Edward Weston: Photography and Modernism (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1999), pl. 42 (inverted)

Jennifer A. Watts, ed., Edward Weston: A Legacy (San Marino: The Huntington Library, Art Collection, and Botanical Gardens, 2003), p. 110, pl. 4

This photograph conveys an extraordinary amount of detail, both in the gnarly curvature of radish’s roots and in the dark background. The photograph is on semi-glossy paper and is in generally excellent condition. Very faint silvering is visible in raking light in the dark areas of the image. A small, soft linear indentation in the lower right quadrant and tiny deposits of original retouching overall are visible only upon very close examination. A tiny raised area, likely a particle trapped between the photograph and board during mounting, is visible in raking light in the central portion of image. This photograph is on Weston’s customary white slick board mount, which may have been trimmed slightly as there is some unevenness at the edges. Along the upper edge of the mount, a linear band of discoloration, with sporadic loss of the top paper-ply, suggests that tape was at one time affixed. There is sporadic minor foxing on the front and reverse of the mount.
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Amy Conger notes that Weston made seven studies of ‘a most amazing white radish’ given to him by the painter Henrietta Shore, who had previously loaned him the nautilus shell which he photographed so extensively beginning in 1927 (Daybooks, California, p. 271).  For the radish series, Weston experimented with the position of his camera and the placement of the sinewy radish upon the grass. 

While Weston recorded only two prints of ‘58 V’ in his negative log, Conger locates 6 prints in these institutional collections: Center for Creative Photography, Tucson; Art Institute of Chicago; The Huntington Library, San Marino; Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois; University of California, Los Angeles; and the University of California, Santa Cruz, this last a Project Print.  Prints from this series rarely appear at auction, and at the time of this writing it is believed that only one print of ‘58 V’ has previously been offered.