EDWARD WESTON (1886–1958)

On a trip in 1922 to visit his sister May, in Middletown, Ohio, Weston made four images of the local American Rolling Mill Co (later, Armco Steel), whose soaring smokestacks and industrial aesthetic captivated him. From Ohio, Weston journeyed further, on an inaugural visit to New York City, and at his sister and brother-in-law’s urging. He was further encouraged after a meeting with Alfred Stieglitz, who expressed enthusiasm for his Armco images in particular. This critical feedback, along with introductions and camaraderie with other contemporary photographers, including Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand, set the course for much of what would come thereafter.

The images of Armco from 1922 were a continued departure from Weston’s earlier Pictorialist work. They demonstrate the photographer’s new Modernist dedication. In the present image, Weston presents the industrial plant as a monument to progress, not uncommon among early Modernists. Gone are painterly techniques or anything that would soften the scene. Amy Conger writes in relation to this particular image that during Weston’s stay in Mexico with Tina Modotti during 1923, Weston noted that ‘the phrase I love—“form follows function”—is as applicable to these charros [cowboys] as it is to the smoke stacks and grain elevators of industrialism’ (Conger, fig. 86/1922).

Weston made four negatives of the Armco plant; only three are known to have been printed. Other prints of this image reside in the public collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the J. Paul Getty Museum, California; and George Eastman House, Rochester, New York. This is the earliest print of this image to be offered at auction.