This self-portrait shows the young photographer in her early twenties, just recently returned to the United States from Germany. The portrait is essentially a coming- of-age picture, with the photographer presenting herself before the camera after completing her academic studies, first at the University of Washington and then at the Technische Hochschule in Dresden.
Although she had already opened her own portrait studio in Seattle, Imogen Cunningham appears somewhat reticent in this photograph, as though not entirely comfortable in front of the lens. The tentative nature of the portrait is suggested by the deep shadows on the right, which obscure half of her face. She remains partially in the dark, perhaps to indicate her emerging role or unease at being a model, while the prints in her lap imply that she is more comfortable with the technical side of photography.
Cunningham was born in Portland, Oregon and grew up in Seattle, Washington. Although she had bought her first camera in 1901 it was not until 1906, when she was a university student, that Cunningham was inspired to pursue photography seriously after seeing the work of Gertrude Käsebier. Having been advised by one of her professors that chemistry was an essential subject if she were to become a photographer, Cunningham graduated with a chemistry degree and a thesis on ‘Modern Processes of Photography’. She then went to work with the photographer Edward S. Curtis, who had a studio in Seattle; there she learned the art of portraiture and the business of running a professional studio. A fellowship to attend the Technische Hochschule in 1909 saw Cunningham continue her studies on the technical aspects of the medium, in particular platinum printing. When she returned to the USA the following year, she did so via London and New York, meeting the leading American photographers of the day: Alvin Langdon Coburn, Alfred Stieglitz and Käsebier.
Once back in Seattle, Cunningham opened her studio and by 1913 had her first official exhibition at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. After marrying the artist Roi Partridge, Cunningham had three sons: Gryffyd, Rondal and Padraic. When the family moved to San Francisco, she continued working but focused largely on portraying her children and the botanical specimens in the family garden. Her sharp-focused photographs of the plants celebrated the formal properties of the organic forms and several of her prints were included in the seminal exhibition Film und Foto held in Stuttgart in 1929.
In 1932 Cunningham, along with Willard Van Dyke, Mary Jeannette Edwards, Edward Weston and Ansel Adams founded the collective, Group f/64. The aim was to define photography as an art form by a simple and direct presentation through purely photographic methods. The M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco (now the de Young) mounted an exhibition of their work and the group published a manifesto, but by 1940 the membership had slowly dwindled. The legacy of Group f/64 was far-reaching and inspired many photographers to adopt straight photography. Cunningham continued to exhibit and created photographs throughout her lengthy career.
This text was first published in Facing the World: Self Portraits from Rembrandt to Ai Weiwe (2016)