In 1923 Edward Weston embarked on a new life in Mexico, leaving California behind him. He set up a portrait studio with his muse and apprentice, Tina Modotti, who introduced him to such artists as Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. Stimulated by the vital Mexican culture—as well as by his previous contacts with the great photographers Charles Sheeler, Alfred Stieglitz, and Paul Strand—Weston’s soft-focus, painterly style underwent a radical change. “The camera must be used for a recording of life,” he wrote during this period, “for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself.” This simple metal washbowl, which he stored under his sink, is an example of the new and unconventional subjects Weston began to photograph during his Mexican sojourn. In his obsession with clarity of form and precision of image, he pioneered a technique that he called “previsualizing”—looking at a scene through the camera and determining how that would translate to a print; any cropping, trimming, or enlarging of the print was rejected as a betrayal of vision. Here he captured the worn metal and porcelain surfaces of the washbowl and sink with sensuous, almost preternatural clarity. An important transitional piece, this work prefigures Weston’s exquisite and erotic studies of nudes, shells, and plant forms.
Date
Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.
Greenough, Sarah, Joel Snyder, David Travis and Colin Westerbeck. 1989. “On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Photography.” Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art/The Art Institute of Chicago. p. 314, cat. 263.
Wood, James N. and Teri J. Edelstein. 1997. “The Art Institute of Chicago: The Essential Guide.” Publications Department of the Art Institute of Chicago. p 178.
Wood, James N. 2003. “The Art Institute of Chicago: The Essential Guide - Revised Edition.” Publications Department of the Art Institute of Chicago. p. 178.
Sharp, Robert V., Elizabeth Stepina and Susan E. Weidemeyer. 2009. “The Art Institute of Chicago: The Essential Guide.” Publications Department of the Art Institute of Chicago. p. 276.
NY, NY, Whitney Museum of American Art, “Photography Rediscovered: American Photographs from 1900-1930,” September 19-November 25, 1979; travel to Art Institute of Chicago, December 22, 1979-February 4, 1980. (David Travis)
Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art, “On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Photography,” May 7–July 30, 1989; traveled to The Art Institute of Chicago, September 16–November 26, 1989; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, December 21, 1989–February 25, 1990.
Art Institute of Chicago, “Far from Home: Photography, Travel, and Inspiration”, January 20–May 6, 2007. (Elizabeth Siegel and Newell G. Smith)
Art Institute of Chicago, “Photography on Display: Modern Treasures,” May 9–September 13, 2009.
Art Institute of Chicago, Gallery 10 Permanent Collection Rotation, November 3, 2012–May 6, 2013.
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