Weston, Edward
American (1886-1958)

TITLE ON OBJECT: Excusado

1925
platinum print
24.2 x 18.3 cm.
Museum Purchase: ex-collection Brett Weston
GEH NEGS: 19993 10134
74:0061:0064

OLD GEH NUMBER: 8450-5 (*)
NON-GEH NUMBER: 4/50

BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES:
Maddow, Ben. --Edward Weston: His Life and Photographs.-- Millerton, NY: Aperture, Inc., 1979. p. 138.//
Hirsch, Robert. --Seizing the Light: A History of Photography.-- New York: McGraw Hill, 1999. p. 244.//
Mulligan, Therese & Wooters, David. --Photography from 1839 to today: George Eastman House, Rochester, NY.-- Cologne: Taschen, 1999. p. 491.//

EXHIBITION HISTORY:
"Edward Weston", US, NY, Rochester, GEH - Travel, 1967-1968.//
"Edward Weston Photographs: Fiftieth Anniversary", US, NY, Buffalo, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, October 17 - November 15, 1972.//
"Edward Weston", US, NY, New York, Museum of Modern Art - Garden Wing, January 27 - March 30, 1975.//
"Edward Weston", US, NY, Rochester, GEH - Travel, 1987 - 1988.//
"Language of Light: Masterworks from the Collection", US, NY, Rochester, GEH - Brackett Clark Gallery, January 25, 1991 - March 22, 1992.//
"Language of Light: Masterworks from the Collection (reinstallation)", US, NY, Rochester, GEH - Brackett Clark Gallery, September 18, 1993 - June 5, 1994.//
"Language of Light: Masterworks from the George Eastman House Collection", Japan, Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, November 18, 1995 - January ??, 1996.//
"Modotti and Weston: Mexicanidad", US, NY, Rochester, GEH - South Gallery, February 15 - May 4, 1997.//

INSCRIPTION: recto-(in pencil) "EW 4/50" (signed) "Edward Weston 1925" "-Excusado-" verso-(in pencil) "'Excusado' Our w.c. in Mexico, D.F."

NOTES: Catalogued 8/87, DZ, updated 11/90, MMC. (*) Old GEH accession number determined from Museum acquisition records. "The two photographs entitled Excusado (see also 66:070:18) were taken on approximately the same date - October 21, 1925. Different dates are shown to indicate when they were printed from the negatives. When working in serial form, as in these pictures of the toilet in his residence, Weston photographed intensely over a short span of time. This series belongs to a larger body of still life work that engaged Weston at the time. He had great enthusiasm for this particular project - it would become one of his best known - and gained an aesthetic comprehension that can only be called revelatory: 'Form follows function.'Who said it I don't know but the writer spoke well! I have been photographing our toilet, that glossy receptacle of extraordinary beauty... My excitement was absolute aesthetic response to form... here was every sensuous curve of the 'human form divine' but minus imprefection. Never did the Greeks reach a more significant consumation to their culture..." [Therese Mulligan, 1/97]

SUBJECT: study, toilet