Imogen Cunningham
Imogen Cunningham (1883–1976, born Portland, Oregon) was a photographer whose career spanning over seven decades produced a body of work of remarkable range, from early Pictorialist studies through to the sharp botanical photographs and portraits for which she is most celebrated. Educated at the University of Washington and trained in platinum printing in Dresden, Cunningham established a portrait studio in Seattle before moving to San Francisco in 1920, where she became a co-founder of Group f/64 alongside Edward Weston and Ansel Adams.
Her close-up photographs of magnolia blossoms, calla lilies, and other botanical subjects from this period are among the most formally rigorous still-life photographs in the history of the medium, reducing organic form to pure geometric abstraction with precision and beauty. She also worked extensively as a portraitist, contributing to Vanity Fair and producing studies of figures including Morris Graves and Martha Graham.
Her work is held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1970 at the age of eighty-seven.