Charis Wilson, wife and model for Edward Weston in the early 1940s, dies at age 95

Charis Wilson met Weston when she was 16 and he was 45. She became his model, his lover and eventually his wife until their divorce in 1946.

She is the image we often think of when we think of Weston’s pictures of people in the years when he was really discovered as an artist. Wilson herself was a writer, a teacher and a labor union activist who married Noel Harris (also a union activist) after her divorce from Weston.

As to her modeling for Weston, she said later in her life:

“I knew I really didn’t look that good, and that Edward had glorified me, but it was a very pleasant thing to be glorified and I couldn’t wait to go back for more.”

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