Charis Wilson, Model and Muse, Dies at 95
Matthew Kruk
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/arts/design/24wilson.html?ref=obituaries
November 24, 2009
Charis Wilson, Model and Muse, Dies at 95
By BRUCE WEBER
Charis Wilson, who was lover, muse, model, amanuensis and wife of the
photographer Edward Weston and the subject of many of his best-known
nude portraits, died on Friday in Santa Cruz, Calif. She was 95.
Her death was confirmed by her daughter, Rachel Fern Harris.
In January 1934 Ms. Wilson was an intellectually inclined, brazenly
adventurous young woman of 19 when she met Weston, who was then in his
late 40s and a friend of her brother, Leon, at a concert in Carmel,
Calif. They were drawn to each other instantly, and she began posing for
him shortly thereafter.
"I knew I really didn't look that good, and that Edward had glorified
me," Ms. Wilson said later, as recounted in "The Model Wife," a 1999
study by Arthur Ollman of nine photographers and their images of their
wives, "but it was a very pleasant thing to be glorified and I couldn't
wait to go back for more."
By the following year they were living together; they married in 1939
and separated in 1945, divorcing the following year.
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. He photographed her clothed and unclothed,
indoors and out, and many of his images of her - espied through a
window, frolicking on sand dunes, floating in a pool, posed with her
face hidden and her limbs complexly entwined - are among his most
enduring.
Helen Charis Wilson was born in San Francisco on May 5, 1914. Her
father, Henry Leon Wilson, was a popular writer of serial fiction whose
best-known work was "Ruggles of Red Gap," a humorous tale of a stuffy
English valet transported to the American West. He was 45 when he
married; his wife, Helen, was 16. Their daughter dropped her first name
as a young girl, "because she was tired of being called little Helen,"
Ms. Harris, Ms. Wilson's daughter said.
In any case, she preferred Charis, pronounced KARR-iss (rhymes with
Harris), the Greek word for grace; she was named for her grandmother,
Grace McGowan Cooke, and was largely raised by her and her great-aunt,
Alice McGowan, both of whom were writers and part of the San Francisco
literary scene that included Jack London.
Her parents were not especially attentive - they divorced when their
daughter was an adolescent - and she was sent to several schools in
California. She earned a scholarship to Sarah Lawrence College, but her
father, impoverished by the Depression, refused to send her, saying that
even the ancillary costs of her education were too onerous. Instead she
worked for a while as a secretary and then at a dress shop operated by
her mother.
"She was leading a rather dissolute life," her daughter said. "She
basically said, 'O.K, I can't do what I want, so I'll live with abandon.'
"
That was when she met Edward Weston.
The day after her divorce from Weston, Ms. Wilson married Noel Harris, a
labor activist. They amicably divorced in 1967 and remained close until
her death. Their daughter Anita Kathryn Harris died in 1967, and is
believed to have been murdered. Her daughter Rachel is her only
immediate survivor, but she lived among a close community of friends,
including Joseph Stroud, in whose home she was living when she died.
During the past several decades Ms. Wilson held a number of jobs,
including union secretary and creative writing teacher, but she spent
much of her professional life writing and speaking about her time with
Weston. In 1977 she wrote a reminiscence for a book of photographs,
"Edward Weston Nudes," and in 2007 she appeared in a documentary,
"Eloquent Nude." Her memoir, "Through Another Lens," written with Wendy
Madar, was published in 1999.
"After eight months we are closer together than ever," Weston wrote in
what he called his daybook in late 1934. "Perhaps C. will be remembered
as the great love of my life. Already I have reached certain heights
reached with no other love."
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Matthew Kruk
news:LzKOm.244853$sz1.2...@en-nntp-10.dc1.easynews.com...
> ...
> In any case, she preferred Charis, pronounced KARR-iss (rhymes with
> Harris), the Greek word for grace; she was named for her grandmother,
> Grace McGowan Cooke, and was largely raised by her and her great-aunt,
> Alice McGowan, both of whom were writers and part of the San Francisco
> literary scene that included Jack London.
Interesting note, Jack London died on Nov. 22, 1916:
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0112.html