LOT Phillips de Pury & Company  /  PHOTOGRAPHS PART I  / 

12

EDWARD WESTON (American, 1886-1958) DUNES, OCEANO initialed and dated

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EDWARD WESTON (American, 1886-1958) DUNES, OCEANO initialed and dated
EDWARD WESTON (American, 1886-1958) DUNES, OCEANO initialed and dated "EW 1936" on mount recto in pencil below image artist's reference number and date "47SO, 1936" inscribed in pencil on verso of mount vintage gelatin silver print mounted on board 7 1/2 x 9 3/8 in. (19.1 x 23.8 cm) mount: 13 1/2 x 16 in. (34.3 x 40.6 cm) 1936 PROVENANCE Private Collection LITERATURE Edward Weston, "What is Photographic Beauty?" CAMERA CRAFT, June 1939, pp. 247-255 (illustrated on p. 246) Merle Armitage, ed., FIFTY PHOTOGRAPHS: EDWARD WESTON, New York, 1947, pl. 13 (illustrated) Beaumont Newhall, THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY; FROM 1839 TO THE PRESENT DAY, rev. and enlarged ed., 1964, p. 127 (illustrated) Nancy Newhall, ed., EDWARD WESTON: THE FLAME OF RECOGNITION, New York, 1971, p. 45 (illustrated) Ben Maddow, EDWARD WESTON: FIFTY YEARS, New York, 1973, p. 168 (illustrated) Ben Maddow, EDWARD WESTON: HIS LIFE AND PHOTOGRAPHS, New York, 1979, p. 168 (illustrated) Beaumont Newhall, THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY, New York, 5th rev. ed., 1982, p. 187 (illustrated) James L. Enyeart, EDWARD WESTON'S CALIFORNIA LANDSCAPES, Boston, 1984, pl. 15 (illustrated) Kaspar Fleischmann, TEN YEARS: 1979-1989, Zürich, 1989, n.p. (illustrated) Amy Conger, EDWARD WESTON: PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE CENTER FOR CREATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY, Tucson, 1992, fig. 945/1936 (illustrated) Gilles Mora, ed., EDWARD WESTON: FORMS OF PASSION, New York, 1995, p. 211 (illustrated) Carl Haenlein, ed., ANTON JOSEF TRCKA, EDWARD WESTON, HELMUT NEWTON, New York, 1998, p. 120 (illustrated) Keith F. Davis, AN AMERICAN CENTURY OF PHOTOGRAPHY FROM DRY-PLATE TO DIGITAL: THE HALLMARK PHOTOGRAPHIC COLLECTION, Kansas City, 2nd ed. rev. and enlarged, 1999, p. 208, fig. 208 (illustrated) Ned Rifkin, et al, CHORUS OF LIGHT: PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE SIR ELTON JOHN COLLECTION, Atlanta, 2000, p. 166 (illustrated) After shooting shells, vegetables, and other small objects at extremely close range, Edward Weston literally receded from these subjects in the 1930s. Having moved to Carmel in 1929, then again to Santa Monica in 1935, the artist responded to the grandeur of the California coast and began to photograph broad expanses of landscape. Despite this dramatic shift in his vantage point, Weston continued to coax striking abstractions from natural phenomena. A testament to this achievement, the present work belongs to Weston's acclaimed series of dune photographs. In 1936, Weston began to visit the beach at Oceano, where he quickly recognized the photographic potential of this unique landscape. Although only a short drive from Santa Monica, the dunes were otherworldly in their simplicity. Devoid of people, vegetation, and all other extraneous elements, the banks of sand registered the slightest inflections of wind and sunlight. As the present work demonstrates, Weston observed a remarkable range of visual effects in the continual movements of these elemental forces. Here, for example, the foreground is rippled with repeating lines of shadow, while the middle ground bears more irregular traces of erosion. In contrast to these flat patterns of black and white, the background recedes with the monumentality of a lunar landscape. Weston also photographed his lover, Charis Wilson, in the dunes at Oceano, producing a stunning series of nudes in the same year. Although privy to Weston's working process, Wilson attests to the singularity of the photographer's vision. "When I first knew Edward, I used to experience a shock of non-recognition whenever I saw 'the original' of a Weston photograph. At Oceano I looked for those mountains of pure white sand laced with sharp patterns of intense black shadow, and found only drab tan sandhills.... It seemed to me that I was being hoodwinked by a master illusionist. Then, as I continued to follow the process from the sighting of the photographic quarry to its being served up in a print, my beholding eye became conditioned, and I began to see things Edward's way. The dunes became dramatic for me" (Quoted in Ben Maddow, EDWARD WESTON: FIFTY YEARS, New York: Aperture, Inc., 1973, p. 166).
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