year. Flora bore him three more sons: Theodore
Brett in 1911, Neil in 1914, and Cole in 1919.
To support his growing family, Weston worked as
an assistant in portrait studios. He soon built his own
photographic studio in 1911 on land in Tropico
owned by Flora’s family, who had vast real estate
holdings. For Weston, the work of portrait photo-
graphy was painstaking—particularly the delicate
retouching expected by patrons—and was largely
unrewarding artistically. Nonetheless, the next few
years saw burgeoning success, as Weston persistently
submitted artistic photographs to publications and
competitions. His soft-focus, pictorialist work was
included in a handful of exhibits and he received
many accolades and awards, including his election
to the London Salon of Photography in 1917. Wes-
ton also began publishing articles in photographic
magazines, primarily choosing aesthetics as his sub-
ject matter.
The circle of artists who would populate Weston’s
world and help shape his aesthetic began to take
form. In 1912, Weston met Margarethe Mather,
who modeled for him and became his student and
eventual partner in the Tropico studio. Weston met
another photographer, Johan Hagemeyer, in 1917,
and the two quickly became close friends. Hagemeyer
lived with the Weston family for a short time, per-
haps a sign of the growing distance between Edward
and Flora, who was not a part of her husband’s social
circle. It was through the dancer Ramiel McGehee
that Weston met Tina Modotti in 1921. Weston was
immediately enamored with the Italian-born silent
film star and model. They soon became lovers. Wes-
ton’s circle now included Modotti and her husband,
Roubai ‘‘Robo’’ de l’Abrie Richey. When de Richey
went to Mexico in 1922, he arranged for a showing of
work by American artists and photographers, includ-
ing Weston, with the chief of the Department of Fine
Arts at Academia de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. De
Richey hoped that Weston and Modotti would both
join him in Mexico. Modotti was preparing to leave
for Mexico City when she got word that her husband
had contracted cholera. He died before she arrived in
Mexico. Despite her husband’s death, Modotti
decided to stay on in Mexico. She brought 100 of
Weston’s prints with her, some of which comprised a
one-man show at Academia de Bellas Artes. Wes-
ton’s work was received by the public with an extra-
ordinarily positive response.
Weston set off for a trip east in October 1922. He
visited his sister May and her family at their new
home in Ohio. There, Weston shot his first indus-
trial landscapes, marking a significant shift away
for the pictorialism that had previously dominated
his work. The industrial, modern city demanded a
new kind of photograph, sharply focused. At the
ARMCO factory, he stood below the mills and
pointed his camera up so the immense stacks of
the mill loomed above the lens, giving a sense of
their enormity. With the ARMCO photographs,
Weston took his first step into Modernism.
Traveling on to New York City, Weston met with
Alfred Stieglitz. It was a somewhat disappointing
interview with the great founder ofCamera Work,
which had been so important to Weston’s develop-
ment as a photographer. Weston wrote in his day-
book, the journal he kept for many years:I took my work to show Stieglitz. He laid it open to
attack, and then discarded print after print, prints that I
loved. Yet I am happy, for I gained in strength, in fact
strengthened my own opinion...But I feel I was well
received by Stieglitz; I could sense his interest and he
did give me some praise.After a visit with family in Chicago, Weston re-
turned to California in time for Christmas. Modotti
had returned from Mexico, and their affair resumed
with great passion. In the first half of 1923, Weston
made 11 nudes of Margarethe Mather. These pho-
tographs mark another important advancement in
Weston’s work. The images are concerned not only
with the nude form but also with the juxtaposition
of the body with its surroundings—sand, wood,
shadow. The starkness of these nudes also shows a
true break with pictorialism. Seeking a new envir-
onment for his new artistic endeavors, Weston
made a decision that would change his life and
expand his work as a photographer. On July 30,
1923, Weston, Tina Modotti, and Weston’s 13-
year-old son Chandler boarded the SSColima,
bound for Mazatlan, Mexico. Weston and Modotti
had made an agreement: she would serve as a trans-
lator and he would teach her photography.
In Mexico Weston began to accept photography
on purely aesthetic terms, continuing his turn away
from pictorialism. Textures, surfaces, and the play
of light became increasingly important and his sub-
ject matter broadened. Nudes of Modotti, portraits
of notable friends, and photographs of city life
dominate this period. Weston became acquainted
with painter Diego Rivera and other artists of the
Mexican Renaissance who received him warmly
and praised his work. An exhibition of 100 Weston
photographs was installed at the Aztec Land gal-
lery in Mexico City in October 1923 to resounding
reviews from the press and visitors to the exhibi-
tion. ‘‘I have done what I expected to do, created a
sensation in Mexico City,’’ Weston wrote in his
daybook. ‘‘I have never before had such an intense
and understanding appreciation.’’ This apprecia-WESTON, EDWARD