1886-1958

Peripatetic in life and work, Edward Weston ultimately located near Carmel, California, where he photographed halved cabbages, seashells and peppers so close up that they became the essence of line and form.  Similarly, his nudes and sand dunes lit starkly from above, shot in 1936, appear inscribed by nature.  They secured his place at the artistic pinnacle.  Beginning as an itinerant photographer, Weston studied at Illinois College of Photography.  He opened his own studio in 1911.  In 1922, when Weston moved toward straight photography, he met Stieglitz and his circle and then moved to Mexico City with Tina Modotti.  A Guggenheim Fellowship, the first for a photographer, enabled Weston to travel and shoot throughout the Southwest.  The Museum of Modern Art launched a major retrospective in 1946; the Smithsonian Institution honored him with a 1956 exhibition.