From the artist; to Mr. and Mrs. Tom Fifield, Milwaukee, via Van Deren Coke By descent to the present owners
Literature
Conger, Edward Weston: Photographs from the Collection of the Center for Creative Photography, pl. 652/1931 Lodima Press, Edward Weston: Life Work, pl. 37
Catalogue Essay
At the center of Edward Weston’s illustrious career is his seminal series of photographs of vegetables, which began in 1927 and ended in 1931. The series has been widely celebrated for its quintessentially Modernist approach. In it, each vegetable was isolated from its familiar context and presented as a compelling study of line, volume and texture, with the resulting images varying from sensual to abstract. Cabbage Fragment, as Weston wrote in his statement in 1931, is “…a piercing of the smoke-screen artificially cast over life […] into an absolute, impersonal recognition.” Swathed in a soft glow that accentuates the fleshliness of the vegetable, this most humble of subjects brings new life to the pleasure of seeing.
1931 Gelatin silver print, printed 1949. 9 1/4 x 7 3/8 in. (23.5 x 18.7 cm) Initialed and dated in pencil on the mount; signed, titled 'Cabbage Sprout' and dated in pencil on the reverse of the mount.