EDWARD WESTON (1886–1958)
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EDWARD WESTON (1886–1958)

Dunes, Oceano, 1936

Details
EDWARD WESTON (1886–1958)
Dunes, Oceano, 1936
gelatin silver print, mounted on board
signed and dated in pencil (mount, recto); titled in pencil (mount, verso)
image/sheet: 7 5/8 x 9 5/8 in. (19.3 x 24.4 cm.)
mount: 11 x 13 3/8 in. (27.9 x 33.9 cm.)
Provenance
The collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg, New York;
acquired from the above by the present owner, 1999.
Literature
Kathy Kelsey Foley, Edward Weston’s Gifts to His Sister, Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, 1978, p. 47.
Exhibition Catalogue, Edward Weston: One Hundred Photographs, From the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Hallmark Photographic Collection, Kansas City, Missouri, 1982, p. 33.
Amy Conger, Edward Weston: Photographs from the Collection of the Center for Creative Photography, Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, 1992, fig. 944/1936.
Sarah M. Lowe et al., Edward Weston: Life Work, Lodima Press, Revere, Pennsylvania, 2003, pl. 78, n.p.
Alexander Lee Nyerges, Edward Weston: A Photographer’s Love of Life, Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, 2004, pl. 32, p. 174.
Special Notice
On occasion, Christie's has a direct financial interest in the outcome of the sale of certain lots consigned for sale. This will usually be where it has guaranteed to the Seller that whatever the outcome of the auction, the Seller will receive a minimum sale price for the work. This is known as a minimum price guarantee. This is such a lot.

Lot Essay

The dunes are endless. You’ll never run out of new subjects.’ Edward, who was brimming with excitement over the material he was finding, assured me he would never run out where he was, because the dunes were changing constantly right before our eyes. He was right – if you examine the dune pictures carefully, you can almost always find a soft spot of moving sand somewhere in the landscape. –Charis Wilson

Here, in one of the most sculptural and sensual of his photographs of sand dunes from Oceano, California, Weston captures an ethereal scene rendered almost entirely in middle to light grey tones that hover on the edge of white. The transcendent aspect of Nature, such a foundational part of Weston’s practice, is replete in this compelling image. For a fuller discussion of Weston’s work made in Oceano, California, see the catalogue note for lot 303.

Conger locates seven prints of this image in institutional collections including the following: Art Institute of Chicago; George Eastman House, Rochester; The Huntington Library, Los Angeles; and The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

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