This fantastic print from Edward Weston’s series of photographs of shells is rendered with clarity and nuance. The varied textures of three different shells—from the iridescence of the nautilus shell at the top, contrasting with the ridges of the conch and the rough exterior of the abalone shell at the bottom—gleam with three-dimensionality..

The significance of Weston’s shell photographs to his oeuvre and to the history of twentieth-century art cannot be overstated. His photographs of shells arranged before plain, dark backgrounds exemplify his achievement as an artist. These deceptively simple compositions belie the complexity of their conception, the years of evolution in Weston’s vision, and countless trials with objects before his camera. The shell photographs resonate as strongly today as when they were made, almost a century ago. Weston was keenly attuned to the very special nature of the shell. 'I am not blind to the sensuous quality in shells,’ he wrote in his daybook in July of 1927, ‘with which they combine the deepest spiritual significance ‘

Negative 1927. This is a genuine vintage photogravure, printed in 1973. Mounted on acid-free board, matted to 11"x14" in black wooden frame.