Excusado

Edward Weston American
1925
Not on view
About this image, made in Mexico, Weston wrote in his "Daybooks" on October 21, 1925:

For long I have considered photographing this useful and elegant accessory to modern hygienic life, but not until I actually contemplated its image on my ground glass did I realize the possibilities before me. . . . Here was every sensuous curve of the "human form divine" but minus imperfections.

Typically, Weston's response is to form; ironically, it is the form of the most profane, the most functional of objects: a toilet. With "Excusado," Weston replaces the modernist canon "form follows function" with the notion of pure form--that is, form extracted from its function and related instead to the sensuous curves of the female body.
For two weeks Weston studied and photographed the ordinary plumbing fixture from different angles. For this version he dispensed with the tripod, rested his 8 x 10-inch Seneca view camera on the floor, and directed the lens upward, lending unexpected volume and monumentality to his subject. He wrote that the "swelling, sweeping, forward movement of finely progressing contours" reminded him of the Victory of Samothrace.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Excusado
  • Artist: Edward Weston (American, Highland Park, Illinois 1886–1958 Carmel, California)
  • Date: 1925
  • Medium: Gelatin silver print
  • Dimensions: Image: 24.2 x 19.2 cm (9 1/2 x 7 9/16 in.)
    Mount: 45.1 x 35.3 cm (17 3/4 x 13 7/8 in.)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Gilman Collection, Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2005
  • Object Number: 2005.100.144
  • Rights and Reproduction: © Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

More Artwork

Research Resources

The Met provides unparalleled resources for research and welcomes an international community of students and scholars. The Met's Open Access API is where creators and researchers can connect to the The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.

To request images under copyright and other restrictions, please use this Image Request form.

Feedback

We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.