Artistic License with Her Own Likeness

Imogen Cunningham, seen in an enigmatic self-portrait, was born today in 1883.

Cunningham posed for this portrait at the age of thirty-two, with her new husband, Roi Partridge, tripping the camera's shutter. Two years before composing this image, Cunningham wrote: "Photography, when employed to its highest potential, should not create abstractions and fantastic images, but should examine beauty as it already exists in nature. … There are plenty of subtleties of life right on the earth, which need a delicate interpretation."

In this darkly toned platinum print, she has the appearance of a character from an ancient Celtic myth, but, in fact, Cunningham had less fanciful concerns as a photographer.

Using a photographic style considered artistic in the early years of the twentieth century, she presented a portrait of the artist,determined in demeanor and confident of her talent. By the time of World War I, Pictorialism had run its course. Cunningham went on to become a member of the California-based Group f/64, known for its dedication to the sharp-focus rendition of simple subjects.

Source: Merry A. Foresta. American Photographs: The First Century (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996).

Pictured: Imogen Cunningham, 1883–1976, Self-Portrait, 1915, platinum print on paper mounted on paperboard, 3 3/4 x 4 1/2 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase from the Charles Isaacs Collection made possible in part by the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment.