Throughout his storied three-decade career, Edward Weston surrounded himself with brilliant, accomplished women. His role was, variously, that of mentor, business partner, colleague, lover, friend, and, of course, photographer. This path-breaking exhibition celebrates these women – on both sides of the lens – with sumptuous and rare vintage prints. The show includes pictures by, and/or Weston photographs of:

• Margrethe Mather, Weston’s partner in his first Los Angeles photo studio. She introduced Weston to contemporary currents in American and European art and photography and helped propel him from Pictorialism to Modernism. She was also the subject of Weston’s first published nude.

• Tina Modotti, Italian silent film actress and artist’s model. She accompanied Weston to Mexico, where she introduced him to the artistic elite in exchange for his tutelage in photography. A brilliant pupil, she soon produced works now regarded as icons of Modernist photography.

• Anita Brenner, anthropology student living in Mexico. She hired Weston and Modotti to travel the country documenting Mexican folk art, pre-Columbian statuary, and Spanish Colonial architecture for her seminal book, Idols Behind Altars.

• Sonya Noskowiak, Weston’s studio assistant and model during the fertile years in which Weston executed his acclaimed series of vegetable still lifes. A brilliant photographer in her own right, she co-founded Group f/64 which championed sharp-focus straight photography.

• Imogen Cunningham, co-founder of Group f/64 with Weston, Noskowiak, and Ansel Adams. Her sensuous botanical still lifes pre-date Weston’s.

• Charis Wilson, Weston’s second wife and his coauthor on two important photo-illustrated books resulting from Guggenheim fellowships, California and the West and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. She was also the model for Weston’s most famous nudes.

• Dody Weston Thompson, Weston’s final protégée and later his daughter-in-law after she married his son Brett.