CALIFORNIA AND THE WEST, SIGNED BY BOTH WESTON AND WILSON

WESTON, Edward. WILSON, Charis. California and the West. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, (1940). Quarto, original black cloth, original dust jacket. $1600.

Signed first edition of a collection of 96 photos by one of the great photographers of the 20th century, with accompanying text by his muse, inscribed and signed by both: "Inscribed for Jack Atherton with all good wishes from Edward Weston & Charis Wilson Weston."

To many Edward Weston is "the quintessential 20th-century American photographer" (Grove Encyclopedia of American Art, 194). "Possibly no one in our time has explored so many facets and recorded so many aesthetic possibilities" (Merle Armitage). The Guggenheim Foundation sponsored him on a photographic odyssey through California and the West in 1937-38; as the first photographer ever to receive a Guggenheim fellowship, Weston cited these two years as the most productive and satisfying of his life. Accompanying him on the trip was nineteen-year-old Charis Wilson (who was to become his second wife as well as his principal model and muse), with responsibility for cataloging negatives and maintaining a daily journal—forming the basis for this volume. This superb collection of 96 black-and-white images "today remains an important legacy created by a master photographer at the height of his career" (Huntington Library). See Roth, 128.

Contents with slight toning, cloth worn at spine and edges; lightly worn, price-clipped dust jacket with crease to back panel outer edge and a few short closed edge tears. A very good signed copy.