A Cultivated Aesthetic: Works by Imogen Cunningham 1920 - 1970

A Cultivated Aesthetic: Works by Imogen Cunningham 1920–1970

Innovative American photographer Imogen Cunningham (1883–1976), born in Portland, Oregon, was known for her detailed, sharp-focused photographs of plants, architecture, and revealing portraits of celebrities and artists. Cunningham began photographing in 1901 at the age of eighteen with a mail-ordered, four-by-five-inch view camera.

After graduating from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1907, Cunningham worked as a professional photo-technician in the portrait studio of Edward S. Curtis—the renowned photographer of North American Indians. In Curtis's studio, Cunningham learned platinum-printing techniques.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Cunningham produced highly original, tightly focused images of nature. She photographed trees and tree trunks, flowers, calla lilies–plants grown in her garden. Studies of zebras were photographed on a trip to the zoo.

Cunningham championed "straight photography," which dictated that a print must have a full range of values from black to white. The tradition of straight photography presents objects in a direct, unsentimental, and unadorned manner and places an emphasis on monumentality, sharp detail, and presence. In 1932, she joined a group of like-minded, Bay Area photographers, including Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, John Paul Edwards, and Willard van Dyke to form the Group f/64. Their name referred to the widest aperture opening to allow the greatest sharpness and depth of image.

In the 1940s, Cunningham established a studio in her home on Green Street in San Francisco. During the next thirteen years, her work was exhibited across the country and she produced street photography work when she was not making portraits. She taught intermittently at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) in San Francisco.

Her career spans the development of the medium in the twentieth century, starting with glass plates and ending with large-format photographic film. Her work is included in major collections around the world. As a result of her relentless dedication to her creative vision, many of Cunningham's compelling images became icons in the history of photography. Cunningham established the Imogen Cunningham Trust to manage her archives after her death.

[top image]
Shen Yao, Professor of Linguistics at University of Hawaii 1938
Imogen Cunningham (1883–1976)
silver-gelatin print
Copyright held by the Imogen Cunningham Trust

[bottom image]
Edward Weston at Point Lobos 1945
Imogen Cunningham (1883–1976)
silver-gelatin print
Copyright held by the Imogen Cunningham Trust

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