WESTON EDWARD (1886 1958)MATHER MARGRETHE (1885 1952) The Ma

Sale 2158 - Lot 57

Price Realized: $ 43,200

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 40,000 - $ 60,000

WESTON, EDWARD (1886-1958)/MATHER, MARGRETHE (1885-1952)
"The Marion Morgan Dancers." Platinum-palladium print, 6 3/4x9 1/2 inches (17.1x24.1 cm.), with the title and signatures of the photographers, in pencil, on mount recto. Circa 1921

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Additional Details

In 1915, dancer Marion Morgan established her own ballet troupe, which featured six young women who had studied with her in California. The dancers were known for performing Isadora Duncan-style, in togas and bare feet.

This artfully rendered composition, highlighting the elegant lines of the dancers' bodies, reflects the perfect marriage between Weston's early Pictoralist style and Mather's sensitive eye. Weston referred to Mather as "the first important person in my life."

Weston's well thought-out studies of nudes, shells, household items, and vegetables reveal him to be a photographer devoted to detail and distinctly in touch with the world around him. Here, the nude figures are like a still-life, positioned to create a perfect scene, but still clearly possessing that sense of humanity found throughout Weston's imagery. The photographs produced at the outset of Weston's career demonstrate an eye for formal composition as well as an ability to make visible the essential grace and beauty of objects before his lens.

Beth Gates Warren, author of the landmark publication, "Margrethe Mather & Edward Weston: A Passionate Collaboration," writes that in 1921, Weston and Mather co-produced approximately 12 images. The mounts were signed by them both. Interestingly, this was the only time in Weston's career that he co-signed prints with another photographer.

With regard to this object, however, Warren believes that by this year, given the intimacy of Weston and Mather's relationship, the couple were so professionally in sync they either adopted a similar writing style or the artists agreed to have the artwork signed by a single hand.