Getty Museum

Betty in her Attic

Date

1920

Medium

Palladium print

Culture

American

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

Object ID

ffcae6a7-84bb-4aaf-b127-2a58bf84b926

> In 1920 Edward Weston began a creative series of pictures made in his friends' attics. Reactions to these images were mixed. Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976), one of Weston's friends and fellow photographers, wrote glowingly of one in a letter addressed to him, “It has Paul Strand's eccentric efforts, so far as I have seen them, put entirely to shame, because it is more than eccentric. It has all the cubistically inclined photographers laid low. It is a most pleasing thing for the mind to dwell on, the mind I say and mean, not the emotions or fancies. It is literal in a most beautiful and intellectual way.” A critic writing in *Pictorial Photography*, however, was not so taken: “Queerness for its own sake must have obsessed Edward Weston when he recorded the stiff and angular lines in *Betty in Her Attic . . .* , although there is no denying the truth and beauty of tones of the floors and walls. But the position of the girl!—is there not a touch of cussedness in that?” > > The “girl” pictured is Betty Katz (later Brandner, 1895-1982), who was introduced to Weston by his colleague Margrethe Mather (1886-1952). Weston and Katz engaged in a brief affair in October 1920, when he made this and several other images of her in her attic and out on a balcony (see [85.XM.170.2](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/53486/edward-weston-betty-brandner-american-1920/), [85.XM.170.3](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/53487/edward-weston-betty-katz-los-angeles-american-1920/), [85.XM.170.8](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/53492/edward-weston-betty-katz-los-angeles-american-1920/), [85.XM.170.10](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/53494/edward-weston-betty-katz-los-angeles-american-1920/), [85.XM.170.11](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/53495/edward-weston-betty-katz-los-angeles-american-1920/), [85.XM.170.12](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/53496/edward-weston-betty-katz-los-angeles-american-1920/)). This particular photograph is part portrait and part compositional experiment with Weston's growing interest in the formal concerns of Modernism. Katz is shown tucked into a network of large intersecting planes made up of the attic's floor, walls, and dormers and articulated in varying shades by light entering an unseen window on the right. > > Adapted from Brett Abbott. *Edward Weston*, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005), 20. ©2005, J. Paul Getty Trust.

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