Charis Wilson

Helen Charis Wilson (/ˈkɛərᵻs/; Greek: χάρις; May 5, 1914 – November 20, 2009), most widely known as a subject of Edward Weston's photographs, was a model and writer.

Wilson was born in San Francisco, the daughter of Harry Leon Wilson and Helen Charis Cooke Wilson. Her father wrote popular fiction, including the bestselling novel Ruggles of Red Gap, which was later made into a movie. Income from his writing provided a relatively high standard of living for the time, and in 1910 he built a 12-room house near Carmel, California. Two years later, when he was 45, he married Cooke, who grew up in Carmel. She was 16.

Their first child, Leon, was born in 1913 and was followed a year later by their daughter, whom they named after her mother. Wilson dropped her first name as a young girl and became known as Charis, which means 'Grace' in Greek. Her family's relative wealth and status provided her with a leisurely childhood, and she spent many of her summers swimming at the beach at Carmel and often sunbathing without a swim suit. She developed a reputation at school as a boisterous free-thinker for doing such things as starting a "self-control" club in grade school in which initiates had to lie in a tub filled with frigid water. Her behavior led to her being expelled from the private Branson School in the eighth grade, and she spent the next two years at the Catlin Gabel School in Portland, Oregon.

During this time her parents separated, and from then she was cared for primarily by her grandmother and her great aunt, who were both writers and part of the literary scene of San Francisco. She returned to Carmel and finished high school with her brother. While still in high school she met the famous art collectors Louise and Walter Conrad Arensberg, who lived nearby. She visited their home often and was captivated by their substantial collection of modern paintings and sculptures. Walter Arensberg encouraged her by asking for her opinions about art and by engaging her in word play and intellectual puzzles and conundrums. She said later that Arensberg was entirely responsible for her art education.

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