Portraiture

Imogen Cunningham was one of photography's early pioneers, a Seattle-based virtuoso whose portraits and still lifes helped establish the medium as an art form. During the 1920's Cunningham, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams and a handful of others established f/64, an informal group of West coast photographers whose emphasis on formal composition, crisp image detail, static subject matter and straightforward printing became the dominant photographic aesthetic of the time. This volume, the companion to "Imogen Cunningham: Flora", collects the best of Cunningham's portrait work - nearly 100 images, more than half of which have never been published before including a number of self-portraits as well as the compelling faces of family and friends. An illustrated essay accompanying the plates discusses Cunningham's approach to portraiture, influences on her work, and comparable work by other important photographers.