Remembering Imogen

April 12 is a good day to remember Imogen Cunningham. She was born on this day in 1883 in Portland, Oregon, and would become one of the foremost photographers of the 20th century. No small feat in a field dominated by men.

Cunningham’s early work featured nudes and explored taboo themes like feminine desire, which raised eyebrows. “They called me an immoral woman,” she wrote. “I’m sure they thought I was a bit of a freak.”

In 1917, Cunningham moved to San Francisco where, as a young mother with three sons, her life and art came into sharper focus. She turned away from the soft-focus imagery of her earlier work. She cultivated plants and flowers in her garden where she captured a series of botanical studies on film.

“I couldn’t get out of the garden, out of the yard. I was always there,” she said. We’re glad she kept her camera by her side. Her botanical close-ups have been compared to Georgia O’Keeffe’s abstractions, but Cunningham was in fact going in a different direction. She co-founded Group f/64 in San Francisco with Ansel Adams and Edward Weston “as a West Coast answer to the modernism of O’Keeffe’s husband Alfred Stieglitz,” according to Flashbak.com. As Stieglitz and O’Keeffe moved toward greater abstraction, Cunningham and her cohort went for documentary precision.

The Seattle Art Museum recently concluded the first Cunningham exhibition in more than 35 years (you can still take a virtual tour of “Imogen Cunningham: A Retrospective” here: my.matterport.com/show/?m=j7emBW1M5Pv). The Getty Museum in L.A. is now featuring a Cunningham exhibit through June.

Happy birthday, Imogen.

Photo credit: The Imogen Cunningham Trust