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PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTOR
Weston produced ten "perfect" negatives of the egg cutter in less than two hours with only the first incorporating eggs. He described the creative process in his Day Books (II): "Feeling my way as I do so often, allowing things to happen, be presented to me, waiting like a hawk to pounce upon an idea, I placed the little egg cutter on a white blotter - fascinating form - almost any angle held interest: then suddenly the sun burst through the fog and my day's work was presented. The black shadow of the cutter upon the blotter was my hunch. The form doubled, but the excitment of opposing lines, interplay of forms, far more than doubled the interest."
Five different images of the egg slicer have been located. One was included in the Delphic exhibition in 1930 and another was illustrated in a review in Theatre Arts Monthly, which was presumably the same one exhibited at the De Young in San Francisco that fall.
Edward Weston, Jerome Hill and the family of the owner of this print were all closely associated during the 1930s. As an important patron of Edward Weston and a photographer in his own right, Hill's photographs of carved marble are reminiscent and may have been influenced by Weston's vegetable details. After ordering several portraits of himself from Weston, Hill is documented as purchasing a print of the Egg Slicer, 1930, presumably a variant of the one offered here. Other pieces purchased by Hill included Bananas, 1930; Eggplant, 1929; Seventeen Mile Drive, 1929; Artichoke Halved, 1930; Red Cabbage Quartered, 1930; and Eroded Rock No. 51, 1930. Many of these prints are in now in museum collections including the Amon Carter Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. (Conger, Edward Weston: Photographs.)
EDWARD WESTON
Egg Slicer
Details
EDWARD WESTON
Egg Slicer
Gelatin silver print. 1930. Signed, initialed, dated and numbered 4/50 in pencil on the mount; dated and numbered 30M in pencil on the reverse of the mount.
7½ x 9¼in. (19 x 23.5cm.)
Egg Slicer
Gelatin silver print. 1930. Signed, initialed, dated and numbered 4/50 in pencil on the mount; dated and numbered 30M in pencil on the reverse of the mount.
7½ x 9¼in. (19 x 23.5cm.)
Literature
See: Conger, Edward Weston's Photographs, figs. 595/1930 and 596/1930 for two variants.