Edward Weston

Death Valley (Clouds)

1939

Edward Weston was an American photographer and cofounder of Group f/64. Most of his work was done using an 8-by-10-inch view camera.

In 1902, Weston received his first camera for his 16th birthday, a Kodak Bull's-Eye #2, and began taking photographs in parks in Chicago and at his aunt's farm. The young Weston met with quick success, and his photographs were already being exhibited at the Chicago Art Institute merely a year later, in 1903. Weston worked mainly with nudes, still life — his shells and vegetable studies were especially important — and landscape subjects. After a few exhibitions of his works in New York, he went on to found Group f/64 in 1932 with fellow photographers Ansel Adams, Willard van Dyke and others. Weston became the first photographer ever to be selected for the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1937.

Stricken with Parkinson's disease, Weston made his last photographs at Point Lobos, California, in 1948. A 50th-anniversary portfolio of his work, printed by his son Brett, was published in 1952. Edward Weston died in his house on Wildcat Hill in Carmel, California, on January 1, 1958.

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