id: 307198 accession number: 2018.2 share license status: Copyrighted url: https://clevelandart.org/art/2018.2 updated: 2023-08-24 01:21:35.311000 Pyramid of the Sun, Teotihuacan, 1923. Edward Weston (American, 1886–1958). Gelatin silver print; image: 19.1 x 23.9 cm (7 1/2 x 9 7/16 in.); paper: 19.1 x 23.9 cm (7 1/2 x 9 7/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund 2018.2 © Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York title: Pyramid of the Sun, Teotihuacan title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1923 creation date earliest: 1923 creation date latest: 1923 current location: creditline: Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund copyright: © Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York --- culture: American, 20th century technique: gelatin silver print department: Photography collection: PH - American 1900-1950 type: Photograph find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Edward Weston (American, 1886–1958) - artist Edward Weston American, 1886-1958 Edward Weston was one of the most influential proponents of straight photography in America. Born in Highland Park, Illinois, he made his first photographs in 1902 with a Kodak camera given to him by his father. Four years later he settled in California, supporting himself as a portrait photographer. After attending the Illinois College of Photography, he opened a studio in Tropico (now Glendale), California, in 1911. Initially, Weston made photographs in the soft-focus pictorial style. In the early 1920s, however, his work began to become more sharply focused, with a greater emphasis on form and composition. Among the earliest examples of this new approach are his 1922 photographs of the Armco steel mill in Middletown, Ohio. Over the next few years he continued to experiment with this new style, working in Mexico and then San Francisco. A master of lighting and composition, Weston began a series of closeup studies of shells and vegetables in 1927, creating the clearly focused, detailed images for which he became famous. In 1932 Weston joined Ansel Adams, Willard Van Dyke, Imogen Cunningham, and others in founding Group f/64, which advocated straight, unmanipulated photography. Five years later he received the first fellowship awarded to a photographer by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. The fellowship was renewed in 1938 and allowed Weston to travel and photograph throughout California and the western United States. Working slowly and methodically with large-format cameras, Weston continued to produce sharply focused contact prints until 1948, when Parkinson's disease forced him to give up photography. In subsequent years Weston's sons, Brett and Cole, worked under his supervision to make prints from his negatives. M.M. --- measurements: Image: 19.1 x 23.9 cm (7 1/2 x 9 7/16 in.); Paper: 19.1 x 23.9 cm (7 1/2 x 9 7/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Written in pencil on back of mount in Anita Brenner’s hand: “Toltec pyramid of the sun, Valley of/San Jua Teotihuacan, near Mexico, Dated/approximately as 500 A.D. Referred to as/Pre-Hispanic architecture, preceding development/of Aztec. Photo, by Edward Weston” translation: remark: inscription: Written in pencil on back of mount in middle: [arrow pointing to center] “6 ¼” [arrow pointing to center] translation: remark: inscription: Written in pencil on back of mount, upside down from caption: “384/20” translation: remark: inscription: Written in pencil on back of mount: “2 ½ Wht mat/Blk Passe” translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE --- fun fact: digital description: Weston’s photograph emphasizes the majesty and monumental scale of the third largest pyramid in the world, founded around 200 A.D. by the Teotihuacanos not far from Mexico City. The print was made as Weston’s work was evolving from the soft focus and emotional emphasis of pictorialism to the clearly detailed, sharply focused, more formalist modernism, and contains traits characteristic of both movements. wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Amy Conger, Edward Weston’s Early Photography 1903-1926, Ph.D. Dissertation, Albuquerque: The University of New Mexico, May 1982, Vol. I. passim, vol. 2 figure 23M/16 and vol. 4 figure 26/74. page number: url: Conger, Amy, and Edward Weston. Edward Weston in Mexico, 1923-1926. Albuquerque: Published for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art by the University of New Mexico Press, 1983. page number: url: Conger, Amy, and Edward Weston. Edward Weston--Photographs: From the Collection of the Center for Creative Photography. [Tucson]: Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, 1992. page number: url: James Oles, South of the Border: Mexico in the American Imagination, 1914-1947, Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993 page number: 159, 289 url: Modotti, Tina, Edward Weston, Malin Barth, Jose Antonio Rodgriguez, and Antonio Saborit. Tina Modotti & Edward Weston: Mexican Years. New York, NY: Throckmorton Fine Art, 1999. page number: 8, 51 url: Stebbins, Theodore E., Edward Weston, Karen E. Quinn, and Leslie Furth. Edward Weston: Photography and Modernism. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in association with Bulfinch Press, 1999. page number: 31-32, 211 url: Debroise, Olivier. Mexican Suite: A History of Photography in Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001. page number: 97-101 url: Figarella, Mariana. Edward Weston y Tina Modotti en México: su inserción dentro de las estrategias estéticas del arte posrevolucionario. México, D.F.: UNAM, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, 2002. page number: 91-92 url: Weston, Edward, Sarah M. Lowe, and Dody W. Thompson. Edward Weston: Life Work : Photographs from the Collection of Judith G. Hochberg and Michael P. Mattis. Revere, Pa: Lodima Press, 2003. page number: 47, 49 url: Lowe, Sarah M., Tina Modotti, and Edward Weston. Tina Modotti & Edward Weston: The Mexico Years. London: Merrell, in association with Barbican Art Gallery, 2004. page number: 21 url: Tannenbaum, Barbara. “Acquisitions 2018: Photography.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine vol. 59, no. 2 (March/April 2019): 24-25. page number: Reproduced: P. 25; Mentioned: P. 24. url: --- IMAGES