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Edward Weston's muse and one-time wife, Charis Wilson, died at 95 in mid-November. Recollecting her younger days, Charis said: "I knew I really didn’t look that good, and that Edward had glorified me, but it was a very pleasant thing to be glorified and I couldn’t wait to go back for more."
Although in later years she must have changed her mind, as her daughter recounts: "She didn't really think of herself as a muse, or an icon. She thought all that stuff was nonsense. They had a good, collaborative, working relationship. They both gained so much from that union."
Of course, the modern Charis doesn't call herself Weston's muse. That's an old-fashioned word that oppresses women, after all. She would rather be known as his collaborator, having participated in his 1937-38 Guggenheim Fellowship - the first given to a photographer - both in writing it and in fulfilling it during his photographic expedition around California and the west. To be fair, she did receive a stipend/salary during the fellowship.
Such public muses are rare these days. If "art" is going anywhere in that direction, perhaps it is towards fashion and clothing, which are draped around endless rows of girls in endless fashion shows. But, there is nothing of the unique, inspiring muse that Weston, and even Charis, would recognize in these linear displays of models. Will this glorification of woman, that Weston captured when he found Charis, ever return?
