[Bedpan]
Photograph
[Bedpan]
1930
Gelatin silver print
Image: 9 5/16 × 4 13/16 in. (23.7 × 12.2 cm)
Mount: 16 3/16 × 13 7/8 in. (41.1 × 35.2 cm)
Purchase, 1955
1966.0070.0020
Inscriptions mount recto-(in pencil) "EW 1930"
mount verso-(in pencil) "19M 1930"
mount verso-(in pencil) "19M 1930"
TextWriting about this photograph in his Daybooks (journal), Edward Weston enthused, “ . . . seeing an old bedpan, I took one look, and fell hard. I have an exquisite negative. It might easily be called ‘The Princess’ or ‘The Bird’ [both sculptures by Constantin Brancusi]! It has a stately, aloof dignity—stood on end—‘form follows function’ again.” The excitement Weston expressed was not about documenting the existence of this admittedly mundane object. It was the formal possibilities that a photograph of the object could offer that interested him—the bedpan’s unusual shape, rounded volume, and smooth surface. Like other members of Group f/64, an association he, Ansel Adams, and nine other photographers formed in 1932, Weston rejected the literary or allegorical overtones of the Pictorialism that still dominated West Coast art photography after World War I in favor of clear, precisely focused images of what Weston referred to as “the thing itself.” Characteristically, this work declares that the subject of Weston’s photograph is not actually the humble “thing itself” but the simplicity and elegance of his picture of it.
Lisa Hostetler, Ph.D.
Curator in Charge, Department of Photography
Label for A History of Photography [Rotation 1]
May 9–September 28, 2014
Lisa Hostetler, Ph.D.
Curator in Charge, Department of Photography
Label for A History of Photography [Rotation 1]
May 9–September 28, 2014
