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Aniya Kuhn

March 29, 2017

Erin Stelling

Photography I

Master Photographer: (the late) Mrs. Imogen Cunningham

Born in Portland, Oregon on April 22 in year 1883 to Isaac and Susan Elizabeth and died,

at the age of 93, in San Francisco, California on June 24 year 1976. Imogen Cunningham was a

well known photographer who created her own signature through the beauties of still life: plants.

One of ten children in a very poor German household, Mrs. Cunningham grew a love for

photography at the age of eight years old. Her family peaked an interest in her new found love

and sacrificed to give her art lessons which the family could barely afford. As she grew in her

work studying at the University of Washington of 1903 after leaving Broadway High School in

Seattle, she deepened her interests by studying chemistry which in turn lead to her work The

Scientific Development of Photography which closely permitted the works of Edward Curtis

whom she worked with in his studio. She also learned the platinum printing process from A.F.

Muhr, who worked at the Curtis studio. Over the course of Mrs. Cunninghams life, her

experiences have shaped her skills into what they are, and as of today, what they were.

As a student of various colleges, her interest in photography ventured off from her

chemistry studies. At the University of Washington, Mrs. Imogen enjoyed the closeness and still

factors of the different materials that she worked with almost daily and decided to take it farther

than just four walls. She used herself as the model and started off with nude photos of herself,
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also known as a nude self portrait. These were some of her first photographs taken on UW

campus that she had taken with a simple 4x5 mail order camera. Going forward with her

interests, Mrs. Cunningham began to use the techniques of touching negatives and printing with

platinum paper for Edward Curtis, whom studio she was currently working in at the time in

Germany. The movement of location helped her to enhance her technical skills as well as

compare them to the previous works of American photographers to those of German portraits.

Not too long afterwards, Mrs. Imogen opened her own studio which established her as one of the

first women to become a professional photographer.

"One must be able to gain an understanding at short notice and close

range of the beauties of character, intellect, and spirit so as to be able to

draw out the best qualities and make them show in the outer aspect of the

sitter.

To do this one must not have a too pronounced notion of what constitutes

beauty in the external and, above all, must not worship it. To worship beauty

for its own sake is narrow, and one surely cannot derive from it that

aesthetic pleasure which comes from finding beauty in the commonest things."

-Imogen Cunningham

This quote was said by the photographer herself emphasizing the thought process, beauty

of stillness, and the appreciation of nature that extends all around us as humans. With this, Mrs.

Cunningham influenced the growth in the percentage of women photographers by publishing an

article that she titled, "Photography as a Profession for Women". She decided to specialize in

more natural approaches of portraiture over the rigid and stereotypical formats that are depicted

from studio photos. Knowing this, her childhood fascinations and vegetation increased her use of

stark lines, plant-based subjects, and smaller and larger levels of scales to create different

paradoxes of expansion.
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Henceforth her previous works, Mrs. Imogen Cunningham was invited to the Vanity Fair

to pursue her working conditions in photography and feature them according to their label until it

stopped in 1936. She was also given an opportunity to work at the fine arts department at the

California School of FIne Arts (CSFA). Mrs. had turned into Ms. Imogen thereafter, and she had

also accepted the position. While moving around the globe, Ms. Imogen had broadened her

portraits from strictly nature-based subjects to street images revealing images of older artists,

poets, and writers.

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Works Cited

"Imogen Cunningham." Her Life and Work. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2017. Print.

"Imogen Cunningham." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Encyclopedia.com, n.d. Web. 04 Apr.

2017. Print.

The Editors of Encyclopdia Britannica. "Imogen Cunningham." Encyclopdia Britannica.

Encyclopdia Britannica, inc., 18 Dec. 2014. Web. 04 Apr. 2017. Print.

Exhibit-E.com. "Imogen Cunningham." Joseph Bellows Gallery - Imogen Cunningham -

Biography. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2017. Print.