Imogen Cunningham

Magnolia Blossom

By the mid-1920s Cunningham was spending most of her time at home looking after her three young children. She was entranced by the blooms in her California garden and as the best means to continue working whilst being a mother, began photographing these flowers at exquisitely close range. Magnolia Blossom, one of her most iconic works from this period, is a close-up of the flower illuminated by glowing natural light. Though she was, as critic Hilton Kramer noted, "still disposed to envelop her subjects in the kind of light that softens and poeticizes every form...there is nonetheless a more consciously articulated concreteness in [the botanical] pictures." The pistil and stamen, exquisitely detailed and precise, stand at attention in the center of gently curving petals, which appear softer and more fragile. The interplay between the flower's parts is mesmerizing, and it does not come as a surprise to learn that horticulturalists and scientists used - and still use - her botanical photographs in their work. The Magnolia, along with the Calla Lilly, were blooms both repeatedly photographed by Cunningham.

It also does not surprise that Cunningham's botanicals have garnered her comparisons with Georgia O'Keefe, the esteemed modernist painter of bold, erotic blooms. Magnolia Blossom certainly gives off a sensuous, erotic vibe in its juxtaposition of the hard and soft parts of the flower, as well as its extremely close-up, intimate framing, but there is also ambivalence and artifice. One critic deemed this "consciously articulated concreteness" conducive to the photograph looking like "a Hollywood stage set." Indeed, the obfuscation of the stem or any other connection to context makes this flower almost not-a-flower. Emilee Prado wrote that the work "showcased the flower in an isolated, delicate way," perhaps as a commentary on Cunningham's own isolation at home, or more likely, contemplation on her own fertility and reproductive capacity at this time. The flower stands as a metaphor for many things and thus it makes sense that it is taken out of context of any rooted or garden setting. Though this work predates the founding of Group f/64, Kramer's comment on the "concreteness" of the work suggests what is to come. Here she consciously frames the flower to evoke the aforementioned artifice and sensuousness, but she also limits both of those compared to her Pictorialist works.

Gelatin silver print - Museum of Modern Art, New York

Colletia Cruciata 7

With not only a tendency to photograph flowers, Cunningham was also particularly attracted to succulent plants. These were photographed within the Straight Photography parameters with sharp focus and very particular framing. Many of the succulents appear as though they could be found on the deepest seabed as well at the top of the highest mountain. They also look as much manmade as they do natural, and in this sense seem to merge many different aspects of life. Indeed, Cunningham's fellow botanist photographer, Karl Blossfeldt said, "the plant must be valued as a totally artistic and architectural structure". Colletia Cruciata 7 is particularly interesting in this respect as it seems to grow like a built tower or a flying machine as much as an ordinary plant.

Also interesting about the succulents that Cunningham photographed - by contrast to many of her more delicate petal based blooms - is that they have an aggressive quality to the fabric of their design. Here especially, the plant has distinct spikes and whilst other versions of Cunningham's flower photographs give a distinct lure of a soft and protective vagina, here there is the suggestion of a vagina dentate (a toothed vagina) and the warning that pursued pleasure could also be a source of great pain. Cunningham's exploration of succulents therefore highlights that her journey into the depiction of plant life is not one done principally for the sake of decorative beauty, but first and foremost as an investigation of the complex paradoxes of life.

Paris Street

Cunningham's sojourn in Paris in later life yielded some of her most captivating street photography. Here she photographs a nattily dressed couple from behind, playfully leaning over what appears to be a bridge. The man and woman occupy the center of the image, and a large tree looms up from somewhere down below and fills most of the background with its branches and leaves. Though the viewer cannot see their faces, the couple's casual and uninhibited poses strongly suggest that they enjoying their moment together. The light hits the scene straight on, thus precluding any moody, deep shadows. There is a sense of Charlie Chaplin comedy at work, as though the couple may tumble over the bridge and then reemerge, or the man may cheekily reveal his girlfriend's knickers. It is paradoxically not a static image and seems that much could happen in an instant.

Cunningham's charming image typified those coming out of Paris a decade or two after WWII's end. The parisian photographer's eye was no longer drawn to ruined buildings or spectral soldiers but, as the International Photography Hall of Fame explains, was now enthralled by "sentiment, parks, and lovers - a romantic view. Poetic fragments of everyday life were being celebrated in cafes, bustling streets, and overflowing terraces." Cunningham did not set these scenes up but captured them with her Rolleiflex. She called them her "stolen pictures". Journalist Steve Meltzer wrote that Cunningham had told him, "Once a woman who does street work said to me, 'I've never photographed anyone I haven't asked first.' I said to her, 'Suppose Cartier-Bresson asked the man who jumped in the puddle to do it again - it never would have been the same. Start stealing!"

Gelatin silver print