Getty Museum

Flora and Neil Weston

Date

1917

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Culture

American

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

> This image is part of a baby album (see [89.XA.23](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/33961/edward-weston-neil-weston-ms-cover-title-childhood-portraits-including-some-with-flora-weston-american-about-1916-1925/)) that Flora Weston complied for her son Neil throughout his childhood. Neil Weston (1916-1998), the third of Edward and Flora Weston's four sons, was one of his father's favorite subjects in the early 1920s, perhaps because he was, as Weston wrote in his daybook, “absolutely natural and unconscious in front of the camera.” As in Weston's best portraits, emotive qualities dominate this depiction. According to Weston, Neil “seemed most himself” while naked, and he played muse on multiple occasions between 1922 and 1925 (see for example [84.XA.23.42](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/65469/edward-weston-neil-weston-american-1923/), [89.XA.23.56](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/65483/edward-weston-neil-weston-american-spring-1925/), [89.XA.23.60](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/65487/edward-weston-neil-weston-american-spring-1925/)) to his father's growing interest in nude studies. The pictures of Neil were intended to serve as both family heirlooms and aesthetic statements that could be shared with other artists. The Getty Museum acquired this album in 1989 from Neil's younger brother, Cole (1919-2003), who was also the source for the other seven Weston family albums in the collection (see [86.XA.712](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/33878/edward-weston-unknown-theodore-brett-weston-cover-title-album-a-collection-of-baby-portraits-plus-some-contemporary-ephemera-american-about-1910-1920-1950/), [86.XA.713](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/33879/edward-weston-unknown-cole-weston-cover-title-album-b-collection-of-baby-portraits-plus-some-contemporary-emphemera-american-about-1915-1925-1937/), [86.XA.714](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/33880/edward-weston-unknown-rincon-homestead-album-album-c-a-mixed-collection-of-views-snapshots-interiors-etc-mostly-at-tropico-california-a-family-album-of-edward-and-flora-weston-american-about-1908-1914/), [86.XA.715](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/33881/edward-weston-unknown-album-d-mixed-collection-of-snapshots-group-portraits-views-etc-being-a-family-album-of-edward-and-flora-weston-mostly-from-tropico-california-american-about-1902-1911/), [86.XA.716](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/33882/edward-weston-unknown-rincon-courtship-album-1907-ms-title-album-e-portraits-self-portraits-and-views-at-san-gabriel-river-california-with-flora-weston-and-two-women-emily-and-gretchen-american-1907/), [86.XA.717](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/33883/edward-weston-a-louis-mojonier-unknown-album-f-mixed-collection-of-portraits-occupations-self-portraits-views-etc-many-probably-taken-at-tropico-california-about-1908-1915/), [86.XA.718](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/33884/edward-weston-cole-weston-unknown-edward-chandler-weston-cover-title-album-g-collection-of-snapshots-portraits-from-birth-to-adolescence-plus-some-miscellaneous-photographs-american-about-1907-1920/)). > > Adapted from Brett Abbott. *Edward Weston*, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005), 30. ©2005, J. Paul Getty Trust.

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