Magnolia Flower 1925

Gelatin silver print, black and white, mounted. Close up of flower pistol with wide open petals. Signed and dated, pencil (recto: lower right). Verso: Imogen Cunningham label adhered, top center.

The Imogen Cunningham collection consists of thirty gelatin silver photographs, mounted, with label, signed and dated by the photographer, and three platinum prints, mounted and labeled. The subjects in the thirty gelatin silver photographs range from plants to portraiture between 1925 and 1968. The three platinum prints were made in 1912 and are representative of Cunningham’s pictorialist style. They were acquired from the photographer in 1968.

The photographs were used in a Smithsonian exhibition titled, “Women, Cameras, and Images I,” November 30, 1968-May 30, 1969, in the Hall of Photography, Museum of History and Technology. The exhibition also included thirty additional photographs lent by Imogen Cunningham, and five lent from the Library of Congress. The “Women, Cameras, and Images” exhibition was a series of five exhibitions featuring the work of female photographers: Cunningham, Betty Hahn, Gayle Smalley, Barbara Morgan, and Janine Niepce.