Edward Weston
Armco Steel, Ohio

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Artist Edward Weston American, 1886–1958

Printer Cole Weston American, 1919–2003

CultureAmerican

Titles

Armco Steel, Ohio

Date1922, printed 1978

Place depictedOhio, United States

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 9 3/16 × 6 11/16 in. (23.4 × 17 cm)
Sheet: 9 3/16 × 6 11/16 in. (23.3 × 17 cm)
Mount: 15 × 13 1/4 in. (38.1 × 33.7 cm)

Credit LineThe Target Collection of American Photography, museum purchase funded by Target Stores

Object number78.90

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Special Collections

Target Collection of American Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionEdward Weston took this photograph at the American Rolling Mill Company in Middletown, Ohio, in 1922 while traveling from his California studio to New York City. There, he met Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Charles Sheeler, among others, who influenced Weston to continue his exploration of Modernism in photography. In Armco Steel, Weston created a powerful and overall abstract composition. This effect is derived from the bold and dynamic vertical thrust of seven tall smokestacks that appear as one giant stepped tower, and from the interaction of the smokestacks with the curved and horizontal pipes, all against a background of factory and office buildings that themselves form a Modernist grid. Weston’s photograph symbolizes the power, wealth, and significance of the steel industry in 1920s America. Furthermore, the photograph clearly demonstrates Weston’s complete departure from the Pictorialist style—a soft-focus approach that aimed to put photography on a par with painting—and his recently begun pursuit of a more streamlined, sharply focused aesthetic in picture-making.
Provenance[The Witkin Gallery, Inc., New York]; purchased by MFAH, 1978.
Exhibition History“The Will to Architecture,” The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, April 1–July 6, 2014.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

verso top left corner in pencil "IM"
top right "Armco Steel, Ohio, 1922"
bottom left corner "986"

verso of mount center in pencil "Cole Weston"

verso of mount center a stamp "NEGATIVE / BY / Edward Weston / PRINT / BY / [signature]"

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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