Cunningham took her first photograph in 1901, beginning one of the longest careers in photographic history. She worked for nearly eight decades and continued to make photographs until shortly before her death in 1976. One critic noted, "Cunningham's career spanned the entire history of photography as an art. When she began, photography was doing its best to imitate painting. She was one of the leaders that insisted photography had its own aesthetic, its own value and its own meaning." Cunningham is best known for the highly original series of sharply focused botanical forms that she produced in the 1920s. These immaculately lit, bold close-ups of plants and flowers yield images that are near abstract.
Details
- Artist Name: Imogen Cunningham (American, 1883-1976)
- Title: Glacial Lily (False Hellebore)
- Date: 1927 (printed 1971)
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: Image: 9-3/8 x 8-1/2 in. (23.8 x 21.6 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, Gift of the Artist to the Blue Four Galka Scheyer Collection
- Accession Number: PH.1971.143
- Copyright: © Imogen Cunningham Trust; all copyright permissions must be obtained through the Imogen Cunningham Trust (www.imogencunningham.com).
Object Information
Nature Studies: Photographs by Modern Masters
- Norton Simon Museum, 1989-10-05 to 1990-02-11
A Precise Vision: Photography from the Galka Scheyer Collection
- Norton Simon Museum, 1994-09-22 to 1996-04-28
Maven of Modernism: Galka Scheyer in California
- Norton Simon Museum, 2017-04-07 to 2017-09-25
From Europe to California: Galka Scheyer and the Avant-Garde
- Norton Simon Museum, 2003-05-16 to 2003-10-13
- The Blue Four Galka Scheyer Collection, Norton Simon Museum of Art at Pasadena, 1976, no. 342
- Lorenz, Richard, Imogen Cunningham: Flora, 1996, pl. 22
- Barnett, Vivian Endicott, The Blue Four Collection at the Norton Simon Museum, 2002, no. 445 p. 440
- Gloria Williams, The Collectible Moment: Catalogue of Photographs in the Norton Simon Museum, 2006, cat. 165 p. 168
Additional Artwork by Artist
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