"Hot Coffee", Mojave Desert

Artist Edward Weston (American, 1886 - 1958)

Date1937; printed ca. 1975

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage and sheet: 7 7/16 × 9 1/2 inches (18.89 × 24.13 cm)
Mount: 13 1/4 × 15 inches (33.66 × 38.1 cm)

Credit LineGift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Object number2005.27.2476

SignedOn mount verso, center, stamped in black ink with pencil: "NEGATIVE / BY / Edward Weston / PRINT / BY / Cole Weston [signature]"

InscribedOn mount verso, upper right, in pencil: "Hot Coffee, Mojave Desert, 1937"

MarkingsOn mount verso, upper left, in pencil: "MD-HSS-IG"

On View

Not on view

Collections

Photography

Terms

DescriptionImage of a giant white cup & saucer labeled 'Hot Coffee' in desert landscape.Gallery Label

Gallery Label

This man-made, larger-than-life advertisement entices passers-by to quench their thirst with a cup of “Hot Coffee” in one of the hottest places on earth: the Mojave Desert. Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1937—the first granted to a photographer—Edward Weston traveled throughout the American West, focusing largely on California subjects. Though the majority of his works were landscapes celebrating the region’s natural beauty, this humorous image stands apart

Provenance

Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, MO, 1981;
Given by Hallmark Cards, Inc. to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2005.

Published References

Keith F. Davis. Edward Weston: One Hundred Photographs. Kansas City, MO: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Hallmark Photographic Collection, 1982, 36 (repro.).

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