Pepper No. 30
- Pepper No. 30
Sheet: 9 7/16 × 7 1/2 in. (24 × 19.1 cm)
Mount: 18 × 14 in. (45.7 × 35.6 cm)
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Edward Weston looked to nature for its poetry and metaphor, relying on his camera to translate these artistic truths. His photograph of a pepper, twisting in the dramatic light of his studio like intertwining bodies, shows the vegetable in all of its sensuousness. Weston once stated that the goal of his art was to reveal “The Thing Itself . . . to photograph a rock, have it look like a rock, but be more than a rock.” This idea of looking at the symbolic meaning of form while taking “straight,” sharply focused images was foundational for mid-20th-century photographers who favored a more subject approach to the medium.
ProvenanceEx-collection Cole Weston; Sotheby's, New York; ex-collection Weston Neaf, New York.
Bought by Manfred Heiting from The Weston Gallery, Inc. on 4/19/1985.
Exhibition History"Edward Weston", Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1946; "Die Künstlichkeit des Wirklichen", Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover,1998; "La Natura della Naturamorta - da Fox Talbot ai Nostri Giorni", Galeria d'Arte Moderna, Bologna, 2001;
"American Vision: Photographers from the West, Selections from the Manfred Heiting Collection purchased by the Brown Foundation for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston from August 23-February 1, 2004.
"Passionate Vision: Celebrating the Life and Photographic Work of Beaumont Newhall," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Lower Brown Corridor and Coat Check Room Gallery, January 15-May 4, 2008.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Signed and dated in pencil, recto of mount, below image: Edward Weston 1930
Inscribed in pencil, verso of mount, upper left: 30P
Stamped in red, verso of mount, center: WESTON J. NAEF // [symbols - possibly Korean characters?] [yin and yang symbol in center of circle]
Inscribed in pencil by Weston Naef, verso of mount, lower right: Probably from an exhibition circulated / in Great Britain, 1938-40. / $525 / Burnside 1/73 / Sotheby's Lot
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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