Imogen Cunningham
				American, 1883-1976
		Website about the artist: www.imogencunningham.com
			Introduction
			Imogen Cunningham began photographing in 1901 after being inspired by the work of Gertrude Kaesebier. Born in Portland, Oregon, she graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle with a major in chemistry and went to work in the studio of Edward S. Curtis, where she learned the process of platinum printing. In 1909 she continued her education in photographic chemistry at the Technische Hochschule in Dresden. After meeting with Kaesebier and Alfred Stieglitz in New York on her return trip from Europe, Cunningham settled in Seattle around 1910 and opened a portrait studio which was an immediate success. In 1915 she married the etcher Roi Partridge. Her best known work, floral studies from her garden, was produced during the 1920s and 1930s. One of the pioneers of modernism on the West Coast, Cunningham was among the founding members of Group f/64. She excelled in portraiture and after her picture of the dancer Martha Graham was published in Vanity Fair in 1932, she worked for the publication in New York and Hollywood until 1934. Her worked gained greater recognition after 1950; she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1970 and in the decade that followed had exhibitions at numerous institutions, including the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At age 92 she began her last project, After Ninety, a book of portraits cut short by her death in 1976. Through her last interview, Cunningham advocated self-education in photography. One of Cunningham's most powerful photographs of the female body is presented in "Phoenix Recumbent," a photograph of Ruth Aswald, a trusted friend, that Cunningham made for pleasure. This photo conveys a romantic and playful feeling; however, the woman also looks as if she is feeling regret for an act that she has taken part in. There is also the suggestion that the woman is in deep thought or concentration and is docile. The subject has wonderful hair that falls into long, beautiful curving lines, accentuating the curves of her body. The play of light play on the figure is magnified due to the dark background. The lines on her body are repeated on the bed where she lays. The play of light is also dramatic on the bed itself. The front of the bed is clear and the fabric is visible, but as the bed fades backward, the bed gets dimmer and unclear, eventually ending in a rich black. I feel that this is relevant to Cunningham's past. The front of the bed may be Cunningham's clear sense of life at the time of the photograph and the undefined ripples and the fading of fabric towards the background may be Cunningham's feelings about her past, a period of unclarity.