Edward Weston
1936
Nude on Sand, Oceano

Gelatin silver print
(18.4 x 24.1 cm
 
Christie's - New York
Christies - NY (Sale 1983: Lot 0286 - Oct 18, 2007)
 
Initialed, dated in pencil (on the mount); numbered '235N' and dated in pencil (on the reverse of the mount)
 
In 1936, there was a single, extraordinary, outdoor 'sitting' when Charis Wilson, Edward Weston's favorite model, accompanied him on an outing to the Oceano shore. She expected only to watch and assist as he continued the great series of dune landscapes, but enchanted by the beach's silence and beauty, took off her clothes and 'went diving down a steep slope.' Weston turned away from his landscape and instead made a series of ten images of Charis on the sand. In this, perhaps his most successful series of nude studies, Weston elimatinates all extraneous detail, including shadows - there is a mere silvery halo around a perfect, virtually translucent body that appears to float over the lightly textured ground. The figure is relaxed, self-contained, unselfconscious and therefore quite extraordinarily sensual.
 
Conger, Edward Weston: Photographs, Center for Creative Photography, 1981, fig. 927, n.p.
 
LL/23783