Edward Weston

Known for: pure photography of form in landscape and the body

Edward Weston spent decades in California and Mexico photographing the human body, vegetables, and rock formations with an 8×10 view camera stopped down to maximum sharpness. He was among the first recipients of a Guggenheim Fellowship in photography, in 1937, using the grant to travel through the American West. His friendship with Alfred Stieglitz defined much of the debate around pure photography in the early twentieth century.