"Nude, Charis Wilson"

227 N

gelatin silver print mounted on cardboard

titled and dated (pencil), negative-by-Edward-Weston stamp, print-by-Cole-Weston stamp, Student Print stamp on mount verso

In 1934 Weston met Charis Wilson, the well-educated, twentyy-year-old daughter of a prominent Carmel family. She began as a model for the photographer's nude studies, but the two soon became romantically involved. Unlike many of the previous model-lovers in his life, Wilson remaind with Weston nearly twelve years, and they were married from 1939 until 1945. She was only his second wife, despite the numerous lovers he had during and after his first marriage to Flora Chandler. Weston's pictures of Wilson in 1934 were, like his "Hands of Kreutzberg", close-up depictions of body parts. Set against a deep black ground, as the still lifes of peppers and shells often were, Wilson's arms and shins or buttocks and feet are tightly framed, often off center, and removed from the context of her body as a whole.
Not longer after Weston met Wilson, he packed up his Carmel studio and moved to 46 Mesa Road in Santa Monica Canyon to live with Brett. The Depression years had been difficult, and Weston may have believed that his chances for making money would be better in Los Angeles County than the Carmel area, which relied heavily on the tourist trade. Wilson moved down later that summer, followed by Weston's sons Neil and Cole. The two-bedroom home where all five lived included off the master bedroom a spacious sundeck where Weston photographed Wilson as he had Tina Modotti on their roof in Mexico. The photograph, in which an elegantly posed Wilson sits on a wool blanket with her face turned down to avoid th bright sunlight, was made there, just inside the doorway.
(Brett Abbott, Edward Weston: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles: Getty Museum, p. 70)