photography in all its forms

“To worship beauty for it’s own sake is narrow, and one surely cannot derive from it that esthetic pleasure which comes from finding beauty in the commonest things.” -Imogen Cunningham

Aperture is pleased to work in conjunction with the Imogen Cunningham Trust and make available this special limited-edition platinum photograph of one of the artist’s most iconic images. Two Callas were featured in an issue of Aperture magazine dedicated to the artist’s work in 1964 (Issue 11:4).

Cunningham one of the pre-eminent photographers of the twentieth century, lived through every phase of photographic art this side of a salt print. From her early work, which epitomized the soft-focus, painterly style of Pictorialism, Imogen led the way to photography’s unique new vision, the Modernist movement. Her love of form and abstraction, and for the clear, revealing eye of the camera lens, gave her an extraordinary artistic vision that never faltered during a career that spanned more than seventy years.

Imogen was the daughter of a veteran of the Civil War. He was a self-educated, idealistic, but often struggling individualist, who followed one of those utopian faiths that made people move West. Born in Oregon, she grew up in Washington. In her childhood Imogen probably knew many financial hardships. She learned early that “you can’t expect things to be smooth and easy and beautiful. You just have to work, find your way out, and do anything you can yourself.” Imogen became fascinated with photography at an early age and eventually decided to study it seriously. “My father didn’t think much of me being a photographer,” she once said. “But he didn’t stand in my way.”

The University of Washington in Seattle offered no art classes, but a degree in chemistry was a perfectly practical solution for a young photographer. Imogen earned her tuition by making lantern slides for the botany department, and she worked for Edward Curtis in his downtown studio, printing his images of North American Indians. In 1910 Imogen opened a portrait studio in Seattle, and its instant success gave her great prominence among the other artists of the region. In 1915, she married Roi Partridge, an accomplished etcher. Their first son, Gryffyd, was born in September, and then in 1917, Imogen gave birth to twin boys, Rondal and Padraic.

Dedicated to her responsibilities as a mother, Imogen closed her portrait studio. To satisfy her need for making photographs, she turned her cameras instead to her family. And in a precious hour each afternoon, when her boys were napping, she would make portraits of the flowers in her garden. These have become some of her most recognized work.

In 1932, Imogen’s work was exhibited with that of Edward Weston, Sonya Noskowiak, and Consuelo Kanaga. Her friendship and collaboration with Edward Weston led to the forming of the purist movement, Group f/64, which insisted on sharply-defined images and tonal gradation.

Married for nineteen years, then divorced from Roi, Imogen settled in Berkeley, California. There she worked as a photographic artist to the end of her long life at age ninety-three. Her work is in public and private collections throughout the world.