Edward Weston Early Works at Monterey Art

I was in Monterey, CA last weekend and took some time to hit up the Monterey Museum of Art to see this show — Edward Weston: Portrait of the Young Man as an Artist.

As an amateur photographer, a fan of Weston’s work, and a native of California’s Central Coast, I am well aware of Weston’s landscape photography from that region — some of my favorite Weston photographs were made at Point Lobos, where I spent a lot of time as a young man — and this show contains a good sampling of that work and the later era that produced it (between the late 1930s and mid ‘40s).

However, this show focuses largely on Weston's earlier work, photos he made in the early 1900s through early ‘30s, much of which I’m not very familiar with, which is why I was so excited to see it.

This period was obviously highly developmental, revealing the beginnings of themes and techniques that Weston pursued throughout his career, showcasing some of his earliest landscape and structure studies, but more notably his approach to using singular subjects as studies of light and form — objects like bell peppers and nautilus shells, as well as nude figures. What struck me with a lot of these photos is the way he was able to convey the similarity with which he viewed and captured these subjects, and the museum did a particularly good job of showcasing that relationship.

This show is up though April 10, and it's well worth a day trip from the Bay Area to Monterey to check out.