Edward Weston - Nude, 1936

Edward Weston, Nude, 1936.

Nude (Charis, Santa Monica) is a black and white photograph taken by Edward Weston in 1936. It shows an apparently nude woman with her arms wrapped around her legs while she sits on a blanket in bright sunlight against a darkened doorway. The dynamic balance of the light and dark accentuate the curves and angles of the woman's body; at the same time her face and all but the slightest hint of her pubic area are hidden from view, requiring the viewer to concentrate on her arms, legs, feet and hands. It is an image of a nude that concentrates solely on the forms of the body rather than the sexuality. The model was his muse and assistant, Charis Wilson, whom he married a year later.

Edward Weston copyright 1971 Doubleday & Company, Inc.

Total dimensions: 35,5 x 27,3 cm.

Fine condition (with small imperfections).

Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) was an American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers" and "one of the masters of 20th century photography".

Edward Weston was founder of the group F/64, in 1932. Made up of a total of seven photographers, among whom Imogen Cunningham and Ansel Adams stand out.

Group f/64 or f.64 was a group founded by seven 20th-century San Francisco Bay Area photographers who shared a common photographic style characterized by sharply focused and carefully framed images seen through a particularly Western (U.S.) viewpoint. In part, they formed in opposition to the pictorialist photographic style that had dominated much of the early 20th century, but moreover, they wanted to promote a new modernist aesthetic that was based on precisely exposed images of natural forms and found objects.

The name of the F/64 group came from the width of the aperture that these photographers usually used, that is, a very closed aperture that allowed great sharpness in the image, as well as a great depth of field. This group was greatly influenced by the photography of the North American Paul Strand, defending pure and clear photography, very much against the pastoralist current. The thinking of the F/64 group was closely linked to the New Objectivity that emerged in Europe at the same time.

The group members were Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, John Paul Edwards, Sonya Noskowiak, Henry Swift, Willard Van Dyke, and Edward Weston.