weston exhibit los angeles

[joe a kras]

I just visited the weston exhibit at the los angeles county main library. I was a visual treat to say the least. Yes the lighting is very poor but the images ar e fantastic. I do have a question for the forum in reguards to the image sizes t hat I saw. There were many prints of odd sizes, were these cropped out from larg er images?, shot on different size films?, or what. joe

[Carl Weese]

Joe,

As far as I know, Edward Weston worked with 4x5 and 8x10. He trimmed and then dry-mounted his prints. --

[David A. Goldfarb]

I just saw the exhibit here in New York at the Howard Greenberg gallery, and I believe that that is right, he worked in 4x5" (Graflex SLR) and 8x10" and contact printed and cropped with a scissors (or some method of cutting).

[M.]

Most of his early, non-studio work including the wonderful Mexican portraits and the nudes were shot with a 3 1/4x4 1/4 Graflex. I never thought his later work with the 4x5 Graflex was nearly as interesting. It is a much bulkier camera which doesn't allow the ease and spontaniety of the smaller model.

[Merg Ross]

As already noted he did work in the three sizes. From the 31/4 x 41/4 negatives an enlarged (8x10) glass positive was made from which he made a new negative and then printed by contact (on platinum and palladio papers). He never printed by projection but did on occasion crop contact prints with a trimmer.After returning from Mexico he abandoned platinum and printed on glossy chloro-bromide papers.