Weston and Charlot: Art and Friendship

Edward Weston (1886–1958) was one of the most celebrated photographers of the twentieth century. Jean Charlot (1898–1979), a classically trained French artist best known for his murals, woodcuts, and paintings celebrating Mexican culture, played a key role as a participant and chronicler of the Mexican Renaissance. This book, based on letters that Weston and Charlot exchanged from the early 1920s until Weston’s death in 1958, documents a friendship that says as much about art—about photography and fresco, practice, criticism, and history—as it does about the intersection of a number of fascinating characters, the ups and downs of the correspondents’ daily lives, the pursuit of their dreams and aspirations, and the support and encouragement they gave each other. Lew Andrews crafts a multivalent narrative that reconfigures our understanding of Weston, Charlot, and their era, shedding new light on specific events and artwork. While giving us rare insight into the everyday life of these artists, this work also supplies an important chapter in the history of twentieth-century art and photography, seen close up and from the inside.