Review by Choice Review
It took 60 years for the Huntington Library to publish this hefty sampling of its Weston photographs. More book than exhibition catalog, it has a respectful design and an intelligent selection of superb reproductions providing a good overview of Weston's mature work (largely late 1930s-early 1940s, and primarily landscape) as selected for the Huntington by Weston in the 1940s. Most were produced during his Guggenheim fellowship years (1937-38), although he included a few 1927-33 still lifes, prints from the body of work produced for the 1942 Limited Edition Club Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass, and some other 1940s landscapes. Although no nudes, portraits, or early pictorial works were included in the 500 prints deposited at the Huntington, this book includes reproductions of pages from an unpublished book (in the Getty Museum) and an essay by Smith about Weston's nudes ("the largest category of his work"). Three other essays review the circumstances of the Huntington collection (Watts), Weston's Guggenheim project (Spaulding), and his Whitman project (Danly). They vary in quality and amount of new information, but they stimulate thought about Weston's work, life, and the disappointing circumstances of the Whitman and nude book projects. Exhibition checklist. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. General readers; lower-division undergraduates through professionals. C. Chiarenza emeritus, University of Rochester
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
Beautifully reproduced images are supported by several excellent essays in this remarkable book, which accompanies an exhibition of the same name at the Huntington Library (San Marino, CA). Huntington curator Jennifer Watts discusses Edward Weston's (1886-1958) 1937 Guggenheim fellowship, his 20,000-mile photographic journey, during which he produced 1400 negatives, the effect the grant had on his creative vision, and Weston's gift to the Huntington Library of 500 images he selected and printed himself. Other highlights include a discussion of Weston's California and Mexico photographs by Jonathan Spaulding (Ansel Adams and the American Landscape) and Huntington curator Jessica Todd Smith's essay on an unpublished book of Weston's nudes, a maquette of which is reproduced here for the first time. A stylistic and biographical analysis built around the 500 images at the Huntington, this book presents perhaps the best selection and discussion of Weston's life and work published to date. Only one other comes close: Gilles Mora's Edward Weston: Forms of Passion, which included a close look at Weston's earliest work and information gleaned from the collections of the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson. Highly recommended for university and large public libraries and for all libraries with photography and history of photography collections.-Kathleen Collins, Bank of America Corporate Archives, San Francisco (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
