Robert Coe wrote:
> The other day my wife and I went into Boston to see the
> Titian-Tintoretto-Veronese exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts. On the way from
> the Huntington Avenue entrance to the Gund Gallery we went through an exhibit
> of Edward Weston's photographs, from a trip he took to Mexico in the 1920s,
> accompanied by his son and his mistress, who was also a photographer. So of
> course we stopped to look.
> For the most part, we found the pictures disappointing. They were all B&W,
> which was fine, but the prints were generally muddy and the composition
> adequate but uninspired - not what you'd expect from someone of Weston's
> reputation. I was in an uncharacteristically charitable mood, being in the
> first day of a four-day weekend. (We Americans are celebrating the founding of
> our country.) So I was quite willing to chalk it up to the relatively mediocre
> state of photography in 1925.
> But just before the exit from the exhibit was a picture of an aloe plant that
> was nicely composed and cleanly printed; we both blurted out "Now THIS I
> like!". But when we read the caption, we discovered that the picture wasn't a
> Weston at all: it was the only one in the exhibit taken by his mistress! ;^)
> BTW, the T-T-V exhibit is well worth seeing. Its only stop after Boston is the
> Louvre; but if you live in or around Paris, you might want to check it out. It
> closes here at the end of August, so should presumably be there in the fall.
> Bob
Edward Weston's images are somewhat enigmatic. They do not have the
instant artistic appeal or larger-scale imagery of Ansel Adam's works.
They are more introspective, as was Weston himself. If you read some of
the books and biographies about Weston, you get a picture of an
intensely introspective person, whose work with Nautilus shells (1927)
and peppers (1930), rocks and tree buttresses showed a drive for
perfection in pure photography. His famous peppers was shot at least 30
times before he was satisfied.
Colin D.
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