Edward Weston

Edward Weston prevails as one of the most prominent and innovative American photographers of the 20th century. Just as Frederic Remington painted to capture the fleeting American Frontier, Weston aimed to evoke the quintessential American spirit through his photography. A Chicago native, Weston moved to California where he worked for the next forty years. His art explored a variety of genres including landscapes, still lifes, nudes, portraits, and scenes from daily life. Although originally interested in perpetuating the Pictorialist movement led by Alfred Stieglitz and Paul Strand, after a 1922 visit to the ARMCO Steel Plant, Weston began a dramatic move away from hazy pictures and instead placed his subjects in sharp focus, displaying true detail. He placed new value on the camera as a recorder of all aspects of life. Weston would later be dubbed "the California photographer" because of his iconic photographs of the rocky Carmel beaches and bountiful landscapes.

Despite his financial struggles, Weston achieved both commercial and artistic success in his lifetime. In 1932, Weston founded Group f/64, named after the aperture setting most apt to capture sharpness of both foreground and distance, along with photographers such as Ansel Adams and Imogen Cunningham. In 1937, he was the first photographer to receive a Guggenheim fellowship. In 1946, the Museum of Modern Art, New York held a major retrospective exhibition of over 300 prints of Weston's work. After Weston was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. held the show, The World of Edward Weston paying tribute to his lifetime of accomplishments. After his death in 1958, his son and fellow photographer, Cole Weston continued to print a large amount of his negatives at the wishes of his father.