Imogen Cunningham

Imogen Cunningham (April 12, 1883 - June 24, 1976) was born in Portland, Oregon. She became one of the most well-known photographers of the 20th century. Probably best known for her botanical photography, Cunningham was always exploring new and different subject areas and photographic techniques, thus making her difficult to pin down or pigeonhole.

Life and work
In 1901, at the age of 18, Cunningham bought her first camera, a 4x5 inch view camera, from the American School of Art in Scranton, Pennsylvania. She soon lost interest and sold the camera to a friend. It wasn’t until 1906, while studying at the University of Seattle, that she was inspired by an encounter with the work of Gertrude Kasabier to take up photography again. With the help of her chemistry professor, Dr. Horace Byers, she began to study the chemistry behind photography; she subsidized her tuition by photographing plants for the botany department.

After graduating in 1907 she went to work with Edward S. Curtis in his Seattle studio. This gave Cunningham the valuable opportunity to learn about the portrait business and the practical side of photography.

In 1909, Cunningham won a scholarship from her old sorority (Pi Beta Phi) for foreign study and, on advice from her old chemistry professor, applied to study with Professor Robert Luther at the Technische Hochshule in Dresden.

During her time in Dresden she concentrated on her studies and didn’t take many photos. In May 1910 she finished her paper, “About the Direct Development of Platinum Paper for Brown Tones”, in which she described a process she had developed which increased “the printing speed and at the same time improves the clarity of the whites” and helped produce sepia tones. On her way back to Seattle she was able to meet Alvin Langdon Coburn in London as well as Alfred Stieglitz and Gertrude Kasabier in New York.

Once back in Seattle she opened her own studio and won much critical acclaim for her portraiture and pictorial work. Most of her studio work of this time was comprised of her sitters in their own house or in her own living room or in the woods which surrounded Cunningham's cottage. She quickly became a highly sought after photographer in the right circles and was given an exhibition at the Brooklyn Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1913.

1914 was also a good year for Cunningham with one of her studio portraits being shown at “An International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography” in New York and a portfolio of her work being published in Wilson's Photographic Magazine later that year.

The next year saw her marriage to Roi Partridge, an etcher and artist. He was happy to pose for Cunningham and a series of nude photographs of Roi and others were shown in Seattle by the Seattle Fine Arts Society. Unfortunately, even though there was critical praise for the work, the wider society didn’t approve of such images and made its feelings felt to such an extent that Cunningham didn’t revisit the pictures for another 55 years.

Between 1915 and 1920 Cunningham continued her work and had three children (Gryffyd, Randal and Padraic) with Roi. Then in 1920 they packed up and left Seattle to move down the coast to San Francisco where Roi began to teach at Mills College.

It was during her time in San Francisco that Cunningham refined her style and began taking a greater interest in pattern and detail, as shown in her works of the time about bark textures and trees as well as a series about zebras. It was also during this time that Cunningham became increasingly interested in botanical photography, especially the form of the flower, and between 1923 and 1925 carried out an in-depth study of the magnolia flower. Later in the decade she turned her attention away from flowers and towards industry, creating several series of industrial landscapes throughout Los Angeles and Oakland.

In 1929, Edward Weston, a friend Cunningham had made when she first moved to San Francisco was asked to nominate the work of a photographer for inclusion in the "Film und Foto" exhibition in Stuttgart. Weston nominated Cunningham and ten of her photos (8 botanical, 1 industrial and 1 nude) were exhibited.

After this Cunningham once again changed direction and began to become more and more interested in the human form, with a particular interest in hands (and a further fascination with the hands of artists and musicians). It was this interest in the human form which led to employment by Vanity Fair. It was here that she photographed the stars of the day as they were, with no make-up or false glamour. In 1932, with this unsentimental, straightforward approach in mind, Cunningham became one of the co-founders of the Group f/64, which aimed to “define photography as an art form by a simple and direct presentation through purely photographic methods”.

In 1934 Cunningham was invited to do some work in New York for Vanity Fair. Her husband wanted her to wait until he could travel with her but she refused and they later divorced. She continued her work with Vanity Fair until it stopped publication in 1936.

In the 1940s her interests changed again, this time to documentary street photography which she did as a side project whilst supporting herself with her commercial and studio photography and later on with teaching at the California School of Fine Arts.

Cunningham continued to take pictures until weeks (or, as some people claim, days) before her death at age 93 on June 24, 1976 in San Francisco, California.