Lot 125: EDWARD WESTON

EDWARD WESTON 1886-1958 'EXPOSITION OF DYNAMIC SYMMETRY' mounted, initialed and dated in pencil on the mount, signed, titled, dated, and numbered 'PO43-CNLJ-1' in pencil on the reverse, 1943 (Conger 1742) 7 5/8 by 9 5/8 in. (19.4 by 24.4 cm.)

Frank H. Boos Gallery, 1 February 2001, Lot 797

The figure in the top left window in this image is the artist Jean Kellogg, at whose studio Weston made this photograph. Weston's son, Neil, takes a position in the upper right window, holding a tea kettle and a mason's square trowel. Weston's wife, Charis, is seated partially nude in the lower left window, holding a kerosene lamp, while her brother, Leon, wears a pith helmet and dangles an artist's mannequin and a frying pan from the top center window. Amy Conger writes that Weston was amused by Kellogg's interest in Jay Hambidge's treatise on art, "Elements of Dynamic Symmetry" (1926). Lampooning Hambidge's strict mathematical approach to composition, Weston created this uncharacteristically lighthearted image, whose clever whimsy belies the photographer's great instinctive talent at composition and his ability to corral the range of tones from absolute black to bright white with finesse and subtlety.