Cloud, Mexico

1926

Not on view

Returned to lender

This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.

Edward Weston spent almost four years in Mexico working alongside his companion Tina　Modotti beginning in 1923. There he produced some of his most acclaimed portraits, still lifes, nudes, and cloud studies. Printed on textured, warm-toned palladium paper, this view of a stratus cloud, placed diagonally in the frame, is one of the most elemental photographs. Weston commented in his diaries about the physical challenge of photographing clouds: "Next to the recording of a fugitive expression, or revealing the pathology of some human being, is there anything more elusive to capture than cloud forms! ...One can hardly allow the thought, ‘Is this worth doing?’ or, ‘Is this placed well?’—for an instant of delay and what was, is not!"

Artwork Details

Overview

Exhibition History

Title: Cloud, Mexico
Artist: Edward Weston (American, Highland Park, Illinois 1886–1958 Carmel, California)
Date: 1926
Medium: Platinum print
Dimensions: Image: 5 7/8 × 9 7/16 in. (15 × 24 cm)
Framed: 20 × 22 in. (50.8 × 55.9 cm)
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: Promised Gift of Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
Curatorial Department: Photographs