"Charis Wilson, who inspired photographer Edward Weston during an 11 year relationship and posed for many of his pictures, has died. She was 95.
Wilson died Friday in Santa Cruz at the home of a close friend, her daughter Rachel Fern Harris said.
Wilson was Weston's model, muse and companion from 1934-1945. She appeared in more than half of Weston's nudes, including some of his most well-known pieces, "Floating Nude" and "Nude in the Doorway."
She also was in many clothed protraits as well, including "Charis, Lake Ediza."
In "The Model Wife," author Arthur Ollman's book on artists and their spouses, Wilson is described as, "the perfect model, lively, beautiful, uninhibited, playfully experimental, and always at hand. He was inspired and fully receptive."
Weston said in his book that "a new and important chapter in my life opened up" the day they met."
article from the AP, less than an hour ago
Photograph of Charis by Edward Weston
I'm watching a photography documentary called The Eloquent Nude about Charis Wilson, whom I greatly admire, and when I googled to find more information about her I found an announcement from the AP that they'd just discovered 16 minutes prior that she had died Friday at age 95. The documentary contains interviews with her in her 90th year, and films and photos of their life. If you get the chance to see it, it's really an incredibly passionate story.
It's so amazing so see the changes of time in the human body. To see her interviewed at 90, speaking of her life and seeing movies and photos of her at 20...it's hard to reconcile that both women are the same. The heaviness and drag of our aging body is in such contrast with our youthful, light selves.
Charis was fearless, bold, intelligent, and her own truest self. She belonged only to herself. I hope the freedom and staggering beauty that belonged to her has been fully restored to her soul.
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