"Nude"

44N (Neil)

gelatin silver print mounted on cardboard

signed, titled and dated (pencil) on mount verso

A photograph of Neil Weston's back at the age of nine. Neil Weston (1916-1998), the third of Edward and Flora Weston's four sons, was one of his father's favorite subjects in the early 1920s, perhaps because, as Edward wrote in his diary, he was “absolutely natural and unconscious in front of the camera”. According to Edward, Neil seemed “most himself” when naked. Between 1922 and 1925, Neil played muse to his father's growing interest in nude studies on several occasions. Neil's paintings were intended to serve both as family heirlooms and as aesthetic statements that could be shared with other artists.¹
This back nude not only lives from the internal structure of the body fragment with its haptic quality, but rather from the idiosyncratic image detail, which creates a special tension between the black areas in the background and the light surface of the body.
This image is an early print by Cole Weston, who made prints from his father's original negatives in accordance with Edward's will and instructions. The picture is signed by hand on the reverse, and from around 1970 Cole used a stamp (Negative by Edward Weston, Print by Cole Weston).
(Christoph Fuchs)

Note

1
see also: Brett Abbott, “Edward Weston. In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum”, Los Angeles 2005, p. 30