EDWARD WESTON (1886–1958)

Kelp, China Cove, Point Lobos, 1940

Details

EDWARD WESTON (1886–1958)
Kelp, China Cove, Point Lobos, 1940
gelatin silver print, mounted on board
initialed and dated in pencil (mount, recto); dated and numbered 'PL 40-K-4' in pencil (mount, verso)
image/sheet: 9 1/2 x 7 5/8 in. (24.2 x 14.3 cm.)
mount: 16 x 14 in. (40.7 x 35.7 cm.)

Provenance

Edwynn Houk Gallery, Chicago;
acquired from the above by the present owner, late 1980s.

Literature

Nancy Newhall (ed.), Edward Weston: The Flame of Recognition, Aperture Foundation, New York, 1965, p. 100.
Ben Maddow, Edward Weston: Fifty Years, Aperture Foundation, New York, 1973, p. 255.
Keith F. Davis, Edward Weston: One Hundred Photographs, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, 1982, p. 52.
James L. Enyeart, Edward Weston’s California Landscapes, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1984, n.p.
Beaumont Newhall, Supreme Instants: The Photography of Edward Weston, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1986, pl. 108.
Amy Conger, Edward Weston: Photographs from the Collection of the Center for Creative Photography, Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, 1992, fig. 1530/1940.
Terence Pitts et al., Edward Weston: Forms of Passion, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1995, p. 299.
Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr, et al., Edward Weston: Photography and Modernism, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1999, pl. 122.
David Travis, Edward Weston: The Last Years in Carmel, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 2001, p. 78.
Sarah M. Lowe et al., Edward Weston: Life Work, Lodima Press, Revere, Pennsylvania, 2003, p. 193.

Exhibited

Ithaca, New York, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, An American Portrait: Photographs from the Collection of Diann and Thomas Mann, April 1–June 12, 1994, no. 73.

Lot Essay

As Amy Conger notes, Kelp, China Cove, Point Lobos is a classic image within Weston’s oeuvre. ‘While the black hole is the visual magnet of the composition, the illuminated rocks in the foreground define the space and keep the composition from floating away into a totally unarticulated abstraction… The kelp seems magic, and the water, electrically charged. It is an example of an extremely delicate, fine job of printing’ (Conger, Edward Weston: Photographs, fig. 1530/1940).

Weston and Charis explored Point Lobos repeatedly during their travels through California after Weston was awarded the first Guggenheim Fellowship grant for photography in 1937.

Conger locates other prints of this image in institutional collections including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the George Eastman Museum, Rochester, New York; the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, among others.

… to see Point Lobos with Edward was to see Dante’s Inferno and Paradiso simultaneously.
– Nancy Newhall

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