Nude, 1925 is a black and white photograph taken by Edward Weston in 1925. It holds the record for Weston's most expensive photograph after being sold for $1,609,000 ($2.28 million in 2023 dollars[1]) at the Sotheby's New York on 8 April 2008, to Peter MacGill of the Pace-MacGill Gallery. The photograph was part of the Quillan Collection of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Photographs, which was then auctioned.[2]
History and description
Weston did several female nudes at the time, in an attempt to unite photographic realism with a new approach, contemporary art inspired. The picture depicts a nude female body lying on the ground, of which only the torso is seen, from a lateral perspective. The undulated shapes of the body create the illusion of an abstract form, akin to a natural landscape. The model was most likely Miriam Lerner, who was Weston's lover at the time.[3][4]
Public and private collections
Four known prints of this photograph are in existence. The first was auctioned in 2000 by Sotheby's. The one that was auctioned in 2008 has the artist's signature and date. A third print is held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York.[5] A fourth print is held at the Dennos Museum Center at Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City, Michigan. [6]
