Platinum, 35 x 28 cm, 1919

Edward Weston met Margrethe Mather (1886-1952) in the autumn of 1913, when she and Elmer Ellsworth (1867- probably 1937), both photographers, made an impromptu visit to Weston's studio in Tropico. In 1914 the three established the Camera Pictorialists of Los Angeles, a club for serious camera artists only. Not long after their first meeting, Weston and Mather became romantically involved, and over the course of their ten-year relationship, she acted as muse and model for his developing oeuvre, and he for hers. She also influenced his social and artistic outlooks by introducing him to radical views on politics, art, and sexuality. By 1921 the two had become equal partners in photography, cosigning at least a dozen prints they created together. - J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles