ICON | Charis Wilson

Photo "Charis, Lake Ediza” by Edward Weston, 1937.

[Charis] Wilson was an intellectually inclined, brazenly adventurous young woman of 19 when she met [photographer Edward Weston]. They were drawn to each other instantly, and she began posing for him shortly thereafter.

During their 11 years together, Ms. Wilson wrote the grant application that earned Weston a Guggenheim Fellowship—he was the first photographer to receive one—and she drove the car during his explorations of the West. Mr. Ollman credited Ms. Wilson with actually writing the articles for photography magazines that were attributed to him.

And of course she inspired his art, becoming the literal embodiment of her husband’s aesthetic—elegant, simple, fiercely intimate and glowingly sensual, with shadow and light beautifully in balance—as it applied to the female form. —Bruce Weber in an excerpt from Charis Wilson's obituary, The New York Times, November 24, 2009.

*A big thank you to the wonderful Stephanie of even*cleveland for turning me on to this subject.