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Lot Essay
One of Edward Weston's finest and most important nudes, this image is, however, very little-known.
The sitter Miriam Lerner was a young Los Angeles socialite with whom Weston began a passionate affair just two weeks after he arrived in California after leaving Tina Modotti in Mexico. His relationship with Lerner led to a series of studies of her torso and hands, marking one of the first times Weston isolated a section of the body or cropped his nudes so audaciously. The Lerner image engenders a feeling of physical intimacy, while at the same time it represents a highly sophisticated formal statement by the artist.
The print is believed to be unique at the time of writing this note. Another print from the same negative but showing Lerner's full torso is in a U.S. private collection. The negative is believed to have been destroyed in the 1930s.
This photograph originally belonged to photographer Imogen Cunningham (see lot 16) and her husband, printmaker Roi Partridge. They obtained it from Weston in 1954, the year they divorced.
The sitter Miriam Lerner was a young Los Angeles socialite with whom Weston began a passionate affair just two weeks after he arrived in California after leaving Tina Modotti in Mexico. His relationship with Lerner led to a series of studies of her torso and hands, marking one of the first times Weston isolated a section of the body or cropped his nudes so audaciously. The Lerner image engenders a feeling of physical intimacy, while at the same time it represents a highly sophisticated formal statement by the artist.
The print is believed to be unique at the time of writing this note. Another print from the same negative but showing Lerner's full torso is in a U.S. private collection. The negative is believed to have been destroyed in the 1930s.
This photograph originally belonged to photographer Imogen Cunningham (see lot 16) and her husband, printmaker Roi Partridge. They obtained it from Weston in 1954, the year they divorced.