Weston, Edward, 1886–1958, American photographer, b. Highland Park, Ill. Weston began to make photographs in Chicago parks in 1902, and his works were first exhibited in 1903 at the Art Institute of Chicago. Three years later he moved to California and opened a portrait studio in a Los Angeles suburb. The Western landscape soon became his principal subject matter. In the 1930s, Weston and several other photographers, including Ansel Adams Adams, Ansel, 1902–84, American photographer, b. San Francisco. He began taking photographs in the High Sierra and Yosemite Valley, with which his name is permanently associated, becoming professional in 1930.
..... Click the link for more information. , Imogen Cunningham Cunningham, Imogen, 1883–1976, American photographer, b. Portland, Oreg. Cunningham began taking pictures in 1901. After study abroad she opened a studio in Seattle in 1910 and for six decades produced an extraordinarily varied body of work including many
..... Click the link for more information. , and Willard van Dyke, formed the f/64 group, which greatly influenced the aesthetics of American photography (see photography, still photography, still, science and art of making permanent images on light-sensitive materials.

See also photographic processing ; motion picture photography ; motion pictures .
..... Click the link for more information. ). In 1937, Weston received the first Guggenheim Fellowship awarded to a photographer, which freed him from earning a living as a portraitist. The works for which he is famous—sharp, stark, brilliantly printed images of sand dunes, nudes, vegetables, rock formations, trees, cacti, shells, water, and human faces are among the finest of 20th-century photographs; their influence on modern art remains inestimable. Weston made his last photographs at his beloved Point Lobos, Calif., during the decade from 1938 to 1948, the year he was stricken with Parkinson's disease. His second son,

Brett Weston, 1911–93, and his fourth son,

Cole Weston, 1919–2003, were both photographers in their father's tradition.

Bibliography

See The Daybooks of Edward Weston, ed. by N. Newhall (2 vol., 1961–66), The Flame of Recognition, ed. by N. Newhall (1965), and My Camera on Point Lobos (1968); N. Newhall, The Photographs of Edward Weston (1946); C. Weston, Edward Weston: Fifty Years (1973); G. Mora, ed., Edward Weston: Forms of Passion (1996); D. Travis, Edward Weston: The Last Years in Carmel (2001).

Weston, Edward

Edward Weston at Point Lobos, Carmel Bay, Calif., 1945

(credit: Imogen Cunningham)

(born March 24, 1886, Highland Park, Ill., U.S.—died Jan. 1, 1958, Carmel, Calif.) U.S. photographer. A camera enthusiast from boyhood, Weston began his professional career by opening a portrait studio in Glendale, Calif. His early work was in the style of the Pictorialists, photographers who imitated Impressionist paintings. In 1915 Weston saw an exhibition of modern art that inspired him to renounce his former work: he began to create sharp and realistic pictures that convey the beauty of natural objects through skillful composition and subtleties of tone, light, and texture. After traveling and meeting luminaries such as Alfred Stieglitz and Diego Rivera, in 1927 Weston made a series of monumental close-ups of seashells, peppers, and halved cabbages, bringing out the rich textures of their sculpturelike forms. Two years later he made the first of many photographs of the rocks and trees on Point Lobos, Calif. In 1936 Weston began a series of photographs of nudes and sand dunes at Oceano, Calif., which are often considered his finest work. After being stricken by Parkinson disease, Weston realized he would soon be unable to work. He made his last photographs on Point Lobos in 1948. He is considered one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century.

Weston, Edward (1886–1958) photographer; born in Highland Park, Ill. Fascinated by the landscapes, produce, and people of California and Mexico, he took portraits to support his art, setting up the first of many studios in 1911. Commercially successful, in 1927 he began his studies to capture in close-ups the sensuousness of nudes and vegetables. From 1928 to 1933 he took landscape pictures of deserts, sand dunes, and beach foliage, receiving the first photographer's Guggenheim in 1937.