Museo Carmen Thyssen

The American photographer Imogen Cunningham (1883–1976) was born in Portland, Oregon, into a humble farming family. Her father Isaac Cunningham, a freethinker and voracious reader, instilled a love of art and nature in Imogen, the eldest of six siblings.

In the early 1900s Cunningham studied chemistry at the University of Washington in Seattle, a discipline that enabled her to learn about and explore in depth the technical possibilities of photography. Her first paid job as a photographer involved making slides for the university's botany department. After a short stay in Europe she opened a studio in Seattle and became known for her portraits and pictorialist compositions, which were all the rage at the time.

In 1917, by then married to the printmaker Roi Partridge, she moved to California, where her children were born. Imogen focused on raising them, but did not stop taking unusually modern photographs of her immediate surroundings, especially the plants in her garden and her friends. Her predilection for exploring forms reveals one of the main keys to her work: reducing nature to its simplest structures. This surprisingly plastic, experimental language alters scale with closeup views and matter through the effects of light and shadow.

In California she was a founder of Group f/64, an association that promoted straight photography (taking pictures without intervention either in the laboratory or in the developing process) and enjoyed great prestige on the American scene.

The pictures she took from the 1920s onwards, full of strength and lyricism, express a sensual perception of nature. And that is what we find in this exhibition – an assortment of photographs of plants and nudes from the José Luis Soler Vila Collection that surveys her most outstanding production. The selection features specimens from the plant kingdom and naked bodies as objects of desire. These exquisitely delicate images reveal a concern with capturing textures, volumes, lines, shadows and details of universal beauty.

This exhibition reaffirms the importance of the legacy of a fundamental figure in the history of twentieth-century photography. A creator who tirelessly explored the essences of her universe until her death at the age of 93.

Pictures:
Imogen Cunningham. Magnolia Blossom, 1925. Silver Gelatin Print.
Imogen Cunningham. Nude, 1939. Silver Gelatin Print.

Colección José Luis Soler Vila, Valencia
© 2024 Imogen Cunningham Trust / www.ImogenCunningham.com