December 12, 2009 through March 28, 2010
Paton | Smith | Della Penna-Fernberger Galleries
Edward Weston: Life Work is a rare opportunity to experience the life and
work of one of the great American photographers. This exhibit of more than a hundred prints
features an outstanding selection of vintage photographs from all phases of Weston's
five-decade career, from his first nude in 1909 to his final landscape made near his home
at Point Lobos, California, in 1948. Previously unknown masterpieces are interspersed
with well-known signature images, including landscapes, figure work, portraits of
prominent artistic and literary figures, and the famous studies of green peppers and
other natural forms.
Weston began his career as a studio photographer working in the soft-focus mode
known as Pictorialism, and ended as the quintessential Modernist practitioner of
sharp-focus "straight" photography. His career thus reflects the evolution of
photography in the first half of the twentieth century. As the artist and cultural
critic Merle Armitage said, "At precisely the same time that Frank Lloyd Wright
uttered the then-blasphemous words that 'the machine is no less, rather more,
an artist's tool, if only he would do himself the honor of learning to use it,'
another American artist was finding in a machine the medium through which he would
help us to become aware of the beauty and the significance of the commonplace.
That man was Edward Weston."
Edward Weston: Life Work is drawn from the significant private collection of
Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg. Most of the works were acquired from members
of the Weston family, including a large collection from his daughter-in-law Dody
Weston Thompson, as well as a Weston family album incorporating rare early
self-portraits and landscapes. The accompanying monograph, published by Lodima Press,
contains insightful essays by art historian Sarah M. Lowe and Dody Weston Thompson.
Lead Sponsor:
Additional Support:
Image: Edward Weston, Pepper No. 30, 1930. Gelatin silver print.
Collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg. 9 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches.
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