Imogen Cunningham (1883–1976)
An American photographer known for her photography of botanicals, nudes and industry. Cunningham was born in Portland, Oregon. In 1901, at the age of 18, Cunningham bought her first camera, a 4×5 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 Washington in Seattle, that she was inspired by an encounter with the work of Gertrude Käsebier 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 sorority (Pi Beta Phi) for foreign study and, on advice from her chemistry professor, applied to study with Professor Robert Luther at the Technische Hochshule in Dresden, Germany. 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”, describing her process to increase printing speed, improve clarity of highlights tones and produce sepia tones. On her way back to Seattle she met Alvin Langdon Coburn in London, and Alfred Stieglitz and Gertrude Kasebier in New York.

Once back in Seattle she opened her own studio and won acclaim for portraiture and pictorial work. Most of her studio work of this time consisted of sitters in their own homes, in her living room, or in the woods surrounding Cunningham’s cottage. She became a sought after photographer and exhibited at the Brooklyn Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1913. In 1914 Cunningham’s portraits were shown at “An International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography” in New York and a portfolio of her work was published in Wilson’s Photographic Magazine. The next year she married Roi Partridge, an etcher and artist. He posed for a series of nude photographs, which were shown by the Seattle Fine Arts Society. Although critically praised, wider society didn’t approve of such images and Cunningham didn’t revisit the pictures for another 55 years. Between 1915 and 1920 Cunningham continued her work and had three children (Gryffyd, Rondal, and Padraic) with Roi. Then in 1920 they left Seattle for San Francisco where Roi taught at Mills College. In San Francisco, Cunningham refined her style, taking a greater interest in pattern and detail as seen in her works of bark textures, trees, and zebras. Cunningham became increasingly interested in botanical photography, especially flowers, and between 1923 and 1925 carried out an in-depth study of the magnolia flower. Later in the decade she turned her attention towards industry, creating several series of industrial landscapes throughout Los Angeles and Oakland. Cunningham’s 1922 portrait of Margrethe Mather and Edward Weston

In 1929, Edward Weston nominated 10 of Cunningham’s photos (8 botanical, 1 industrial and 1 nude) for inclusion in the “Film und Foto” exhibition in Stuttgart. Cunningham once again changed direction to become more interested in the human form, particularly hands (and a further fascination with the hands of artists and musicians). This interest led to her employment by Vanity Fair, photographing stars without 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 Cunningham turned to documentary street photography which she did as a side project while supporting herself with her commercial and studio photography. In 1945, Cunningham was invited by Ansel Adams to accept a position as faculty at the first fine art photography department at the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA). Dorothea Lange and Minor White joined as well. Cunningham continued to take pictures until shortly before her death at age 93 on June 24, 1976 in San Francisco, California.

Born: April 12, 1883, Portland, OR
Died: June 24, 1976, San Francisco, CA

The work of Imogen Cunningham is featured in these exhibitions.

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Great Women of Photography

Viewpoints

Contrasts

Circle Of Light

The work of Imogen Cunningham is featured in these Theme Collections.

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American West

Artists

Portraiture – Female

Still Life – B&W

Abbott/Cunningham - Out Man Raying Man Ray

The Art of Photographing Photographers

While in Europe, Imogen tracked down the great American expatriate artist Man Ray and made a stunning portrait of this multi-disciplinary artist. Often in her long career, Imogen used darkroom magic to transform an ordinary photograph, into something much more.READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Original Portrait of Man Ray

Meg Partridge recounts her grandmother’s method: “Imogen did whatever it took to make a photograph go from good to great. She took a straightforward picture of Man Ray sitting at his desk and in the darkroom she made it into something fabulous by moving the image in the enlarger as many as eight times to create a layered, cinematic effect.”

“Imogen had gumption. She was never shy about photographing other photographers. You just have to bring your best game to photo sessions with great artists.”

A Man Ray Version of Man Ray

Berenice Abbott, another Circle of Light photographer, had a very different relationship with Man Ray. Cunningham met Man Ray, later in life, when she was an established artist, but Abbott was not even working in the medium when she met Man Ray in 1923, through the expatriate community in Paris. Abbott was trying her hand at sculpture, when she heard through Marcel Duchamp, that Man Ray was looking for an untrained assistant. A previous assistant had been too aggressive in his questioning of Man Ray’s methods, and Man Ray was looking for a more malleable employee. Abbott fit the bill since she had never printed a photograph or seriously used a camera. Abbott was quickly smitten with photography and abandoned sculpture permanently.

Berenice Abbott, 1921, by Man Ray

Man Ray taught Abbott to print negatives and use a camera. Abbott was an avid learner and within three years or so, she had established her own studio. Jean Cocteau was her first official sitter. James Joyce, Eugene Atget, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Djuna Barnes are among her most notable subjects. Her portrait of Joyce is one of the most widely reproduced images of the great Irish novelist.

The practice of photographers switching roles and becoming the subject of an image is deeply rooted. Cunningham’s portrait of the mature Man Ray reminds us of his portrait of the young Berenice Abbott taken nearly 4 decades earlier.

Imogen Cunningham - The Chop

Ideas Without End

When examining Imogen Cunningham Estate prints, one cannot help but notice the Chinese characters that lie to the right of her signature. A chop is an East Asian printing stamp that is used in lieu of a signature made with a pen in some Asian countries. READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

These stamps can be made of metal, stone, plastic, ivory and so forth and make an indentation on paper when pressure is applied. Imogen’s chop is very special as it was developed by Imogen and designed by Shen Yao, a friend of Imogen’s and a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Hawaii.

The chop is composed of three Chinese characters, Im-o-gen, spelling out “Imogen” phonetically and also translating literally into the phrase “ideas without end.” A fourth character, the customary seal was added. Shen Yao’s role is even more special, Imogen’s granddaughter Meg Partridge 
says, because Imogen knew Shen Yao since the professor was a young girl.

The Persistence of Vision

Creativity and Longevity in the Careers of:
Imogen Cunningham, Bernice Abbott and Paul Strand

“Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow.” – Imogen Cunningham

In a CBS This Morning video segment called Note to Self, the painter Chuck Close declares, “Inspiration is for amateurs.” Close believes art is created from a steady diet of work, rather than the gift of a muse descending from the heavens bearing a brilliant painting or novel or photograph. Imogen Cunningham, Berenice Abbott and Paul Strand would likely agree with Close’s view.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

All three photographers had impressive work ethics that drove them to create photographs until the end of their long lives. Cunningham died at 93; Abbott at 93 and Strand at 85.

Perhaps an abiding interest in the world beyond one’s self is a key to longevity. These photographers drew their inspiration from the external world, whether the impetus was to document changes in the way people live and work or a desire to explore different values and political systems. Curiosity is a trait linking these three very different photographers. The camera represented a kind of fountain of youth for Abbott, Cunningham and Strand, who were determined to use this still young medium as a powerful tool of understanding. These three Americans traveled the globe in search of photographic success in their own unique ways.

Berenice Abbott, NYC, 1986 – by Arnold Newman

Bernice Abbott was part of the American expatriate community in Paris in the 1920s. After studying sculpture in Europe for a few years, she found her calling when she convinced Dadaist Man Ray to hire her as a darkroom assistant, despite her lack of experience.

“America was no place for the artist, and it was no place for me. Nothing would have happened to me here. A poor girl from the middle west with nothing open for me except marriage,” Abbott says in Martha Wheelock’s excellent film, Bernice Abbott, A View of the 20th Century. “There was a general feeling of hope. The war had lifted off of people’s shoulders. There is a café life there that’s very wonderful. People come there late in the afternoon after a days work. You exchange ideas and you’re alive.“

Paul Strand, NYC, 1966 – by Arnold Newman

Paul Strand moved to Mexico in the 1930s to photograph labor and farming communities, after being invited by Carlos Chavez, director of the fine arts department of the Secretariat of Public Education, to document the changing landscape and people of Mexico. During the two years Strand spent there, he traveled the countryside photographing small towns, churches, religious icons and the people who inhabited the land. Eventually, Strand moved to France permanently in the 1950s. His adopted country became a base to explore Europe and Africa.

Imogen Cunningham, NYC, 1969 – by Arnold Newman

For part of her career, Imogen Cunningham was restricted geographically by familial duties, but she also traveled to Europe at the end of her life and photographed extensively there. Though her photographic endeavors were primarily centered on the West Coast, her projects where as diverse and expansive, as those of her peers in the Circle of Light exhibition.

Science backs up the anecdotal evidence that imaginative pursuits can fuel longevity, as Jeffrey Kluger writes in a 2013 Time Magazine article, “Increasingly, brain research is showing that in the case of creative people, this mortal cause-and-effect pays powerful dividends–that it’s not just the luck of living a long life that allows some people to leave behind such robust bodies of work but that the act of doing creative work is what helps add those extra years.”

Though what scientists call “fluid intelligence,” which includes memory and computational speed, almost invariably decline with age, the brain can actually repair itself and strengthen right and left-brain connections as it ages. Kruger continues. “Studies with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), however, show that in the older brain, one hemisphere is not shy about calling on the other for help if it’s having trouble with a task. ‘There may be a decline in function, but it’s partly compensated for by a reorganization in function,’ says cognitive neuroscientist Roberto Cabeza of Duke University. ‘The brain shows these changes into the 80s.’ That can pay particular dividends for the artist, Cabeza says. Language conveys meaning, but if you want to give it particular resonance, it helps to attach a picture to the words. So the left-brain has to reach into the right for help–the poet borrowing one of the painter’s brushes. That’s not easy to do–which is why not everyone can be a poet–but when the walls between the hemispheres get lower, the job gets easier.”

Imogen In Paris

Though Imogen Cunningham is often associated with West Coast photographers, such as Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange, who also came to prominence in the greater San Francisco area in the 1930’s, her photographic origins are equally rooted in the European tradition. As a young woman Imogen traveled to Dresden, Germany to study chemistry and photography in 1909. This was a bold step for a woman at the turn of the Twentieth Century; one of many pioneering courses Imogen would chart in her long life. READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

In 1960 and 1961, Imogen again crossed the Atlantic to reconnect with old acquaintances and meet photographers she admired, according to Meg Partridge; an Oscar nominated filmmaker and Imogen’s granddaughter. “She really felt a part of the European photography culture because she had studied in Germany as a young woman, and she had kept up with the work of Europeans. She was curious about the icons of photography…she just sought them out her whole life. Imogen had relationships with other artists that lasted 50 years. She never stopped making connections.”

The Marche’ Aux Oiseaux, Paris, 1960

During these two trips in the Sixties, Imogen made iconic photographs of artists August Sander, Alvin Langdon Coburn and Man Ray, as well as evocative street scenes in Paris and other European cities.Lumière is proud to exhibit a selection of Imogen’s European works as part of the Circle of Light Exhibition that opens September 26, 2015.

While reconnecting with her circle of friends, Imogen’s sense of curiosity also led her out into the streets of Paris. “She sought out places were people would be accessible and active, such as The Marche’ Aux Oiseaux, a French bird market,“ said Partridge. “A lot of humanity goes on in the streets of Europe because the spaces are so much smaller than in the United States. Public places in Europe can be very intimate.” Imogen…was always looking for a spark of connection or recognition that would transcend the language barrier

American Bar, Strasbourg, 1960

In American Bar, Strasbourg, 1960, Imogen trains her lens on an elegant woman whose gaze seems to slice through the crowded bar and directly connect with the photographer. While looking at this image, a viewer can almost feel the room fall silent when the shutter is clicked. Imogen cleverly uses subtle architectural details, such as a piece of an awning hanging from the top of the frame to guide the eye straight through the crowd towards her subject. Imogen contrasts this woman with a younger man off to the left side of the image who looks out into the distance, as if contemplating his fate, while the elegant woman seems to know hers. “That glance speaks to me of how Imogen persisted and responded to someone, and she got that picture – that special flash of recognition that passes between subject and photographer,” Partridge said.

Child, Near Place des Vosges, Paris, 1961

The openness of children is another of Imogen’s favorite subjects. Child, Place des Vosges, Paris, 1961, which depicts a young boy who pauses in the act of snapping a rubber band to scrutinize Imogen, is a vivid example of this interest. A viewer can imagine that Imogen appeared to this child like a character in a fairy tale with only she carried a camera instead of a magic wand. Edna Tartaul Daniel, an interviewer with The Regional History Project of the University of California at Berkley described Imogen’s appearance around the time Child, Place des Vosges was taken, “A small blonde person, neither thin nor thick; She dressed in garments of easy cut with accents in either color or design of pleasant and occasionally picturesque nature. Without concern for fashion, she wore clothing useful and interesting to herself, and shoes appropriate to a working photographer, who transported herself, with photographic paraphernalia slung about her, on train or bus.” “She sought out children who engaged her on the street – she did that time and time again – children without their parents. She was looking for that honesty and innocence found in children. Children are transparent, and that’s what Imogen was going for,” says Partridge.

Bourget, Strasbourg, 1960

Bourget, Strasbourg, 1960, is a photo of a shop window full of lingerie that seems to have come alive, despite the absence of a mannequin or human. A single stocking clad foot seems to tip toe through the frame while a girdle leans provocatively against it. What sets the picture apart are the unusually angular shapes the fabric makes, as if the shopkeeper wanted to emphasize how uncomfortable, yet still beautiful, these garments must be. This tableau seems familiar because it is part of a continuum in the medium. “This image speaks to the history of photography in Paris and references Atget. All that living was just over the top,” said Partridge.

The photographs in this exhibition are part of a larger body of work created in Berlin, Munich, Paris and London in 1960. More photographs were created the following year, when Imogen returned to Paris and also journeyed to Norway, Finland, Sweden Denmark and Poland. Her friend and fellow photographer Edgar Bissantz drove her around the continent, visiting their friends and making images. The European images were largely printed by Imogen’s son Ron Partridge in the 1980s and 1990s.

Complete information about Cunningham’s work, can be found on her Artist Page.