Sonya Noskowiak - Life

Life

Noskowiak was born in Leipzig, Germany. Her father was a landscape gardener who instilled in her an awareness of the land that would later become evident in her photography. In her early years she moved around the world while her father sought work in Chile, then Panama and finally in California. In 1915, the family moved to the Los Angeles basin in California, and in 1919 she moved to San Francisco to enroll in secretarial school. While in San Francisco she began working for photographer Johan Hagemeyer, and he taught her the basics of the trade. Through Hagemeyer she met Edward Weston, and from 1929 to 1935 she lived with him as a lover, student, model, printer of his commercial photographs and surrogate mother to his children. While with Weston she developed a strong vision of her own, and she quickly became known for her portraits and artistic images. She continued taking and selling photographs through the 1950s. In 1965 she was diagnosed with bone cancer, and she died ten years later in Marin County, California.