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| Image | Last Sale Date | Title | Edition No. | Last Sale | Last Sale Auction House | Last Sale Location | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 18, 2017 | Bananas , 1930 | Heritage Auctions | Dallas | ||||
| Oct 1, 2014 | Bananas, 1930 | Phillips | New York | ||||
| Apr 8, 2008 | Bananas | 3 | Sotheby's | New York | |||
photographs
19.1 x 23.2 cm (7.5 x 9.13 in)
Gelatin silver
Signed, titled and annotated 'California' in pencil on verso
The artist
Japanese-American Collection, by descent
Private collection, California
Kathy Kelsey Foley, Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister, p. 44
Weston made ten negatives of bananas in June 1930. He had tried photographing bananas three years earlier. In his Daybook for April 4, 1927 he writes 'I was awake at 4 with my mind full of banana forms! How exciting they are to work with! I have two new loves--bananas and shells.' After disappointing results, he concentrated on the shells with great success. When he returned to the subject he wrote on June 19th 1930 'bananas-not new to my work; I had done two negatives in 1927, and then was sidetracked. But how much better I can do them now! And what exciting curves, forms, this bunch had. I know from my thrill upon seeing them that something important is coming.' And then on June 26th, 'a close-up, lines radiating from the main stalk, the axis'. Weston's negative log books at the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson show that only six prints were made from the negative of this image out of a planned edition of 50. Three are believed to no longer exist and only one other print has appeared at auction. This photograph originally belonged to a Japanese-American friend of Weston's who helped put together exhibitions of his photographs in 1925, 1927 and 1931 in the Japan Town area of Los Angeles
