Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976) was a pioneer of 20th-century photography, an artist whose work significantly contributed to the acceptance of the medium as an art form. She devoted her life to her craft and photographed continuously and passionately for over 70 years. Her images of the body explore the human form in great detail: eyes, ears, heads, hands, breasts, feet. Many of her images have become well-known and popular icons in the history of photography. This book presents an overview of Cunningham's figure studies dating from 1906 through to 1976, the year of her death. More than half the images had never been published before the hardcover edition of this book. Although the majority of the photographs date from the 1920s and 1930s, her later work in this genre continued to be compelling and provocative. An illustrated essay discusses Cunningham's interest in the human form, influences on her work and comparable images by Cunningham's contemporaries. A chronology of Cunningham's life and a selected bibliography are also included.
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It's hard to imagine a young woman born in 1883, in the middle of the repressive Victorian era, who possessed absolutely none of the prissy, small-minded modesty of the 19th century. But that is Imogen Cunningham at age 23 in 1906, shooting a nude self-portrait in which "the smooth skin of her shoulders, derrière, and legs glows within the darker context" of the weedy landscape where she is sprawled. There is no artifice about the picture, but her pale form is nonetheless transformed into a "floating arcadian Venus," as author Richard Lorenz aptly describes the image. Most of Cunningham's nudes are identified by name: John Bovington 2, Eye of Portia Hume, Jane Foster, Lake Tenaya, as if to say, "I have used this body, but it belongs to its owner." To one nude model she wrote, "Aperture is putting out a monograph on my work, and YOU are in it. I did not ask you because I know that when you are a work of art, so called, you are no longer yourself." This is Lorenz's fourth book of carefully selected Cunningham photographs, and its subject gives it special resonance. (It includes a chronology and a selected bibliography.) In it, Lorenz quotes a last snippet of Cunningham's writing, found among her papers after she died, at 94: "For it is in this inadequate flesh that each of us must serve his dream, and so, must fail in the dream's service." Even into her 90s, Cunningham continued to love and limn the human body, creating uncommonly frank, deeply humane works of genius. --Peggy Moorman
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
Richard Lorenz is one of the foremost experts on Imogen Cunningham as well as the author of three previous books and eight exhibition catalogues on her work.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Imogen's first love-Nudes, male and female-all stunning,
By A Customer
This review is from: Imogen Cunningham on the Body (Hardcover)
Five stars is not enough for this genius.Her husband and sons, friends, stide across the page captured with the hand that only Cunningham had.She may be know by "photo-snobs" as a "portrait" photographer but she herself said she alway loved these nudes best.Just as then some are frightened by nakeness - not Imogen.Mostly nudes , herself in a green field, her love on the edge of a glaciar lake, her boys climb rocks. What a gift form above -what a genius unchallanged.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Imogen Cunningham's Pioneering Body Photography,
By Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (TOP 100 REVIEWER)
This review is from: Imogen Cunningham: On the Body (Paperback)
This book deserves more than five stars for the remarkable quality of the images, the virtuousity across styles, and the pioneering inventiveness of its compositions. On the Body contains much male, female, and child nudity of the sort that would mean that these images would be beyond what a motion picture could portray and still have an R rating. The images are done in a natural style that will remind many of the Jock Sturges work with children and young women. Imogen Cunningham is quoted in this volume as asserting, "You might say I invented the nude." Before you dismiss this statement, you should realize that while she was an undergraduate at the University of Washington Ms. Cunningham did a self-portrait of herself nude in a meadow. The year was 1906. The composition and quality of the photograph reflect a sophisticated understanding of the body as an abstract shape. Ms. Cunningham is also famous (infamous in her day with some people) for her nudes of her husband, Roi Patridge, outdoors. She also brought a high level of taste to her subject at a time when many men were posing women in the nude more for the prurient interest than for the artistic values. Although modern nude photography has moved beyond her work in its inventiveness, the classical elements she portrays here are the sound foundation on which much of the best modern work is based. Anyone who is a fan of 20th century photography should own this book. All Imogen Cunningham fans will find this book becoming the core of their collection of her images. Although I personally prefer Ruth Bernhard's work, the best of Ms. Cunningham's work is just as winning. Ms. Cunningham works on a broader body of subjects, which makes this book far more interesting than most photography books. You will find studio work, nudes in landscapes, bits and pieces of individuals including many wonderful hand images, pregnant women nude, children playing naturally nude, and prominent people expressing their personalities in interesting ways. The book is a fine cross-section of all the styles that Ms. Cunningham used. The book contained so many images that I liked that it is beyond what you would want to read for me to list them all. Let me mention a few though. A very high percentage of the works involving her husband nude outdoors are remarkably beautiful and inspiring. A series of outdoor nudes of Helene Mayer in Canyon de Chelly during 1939 are as beautiful a set of photographic images as I have seen. The hand photographs are quite remarkable, and will cause you to want to examine peoples' hands for the rest of your life. I especially liked her efforts to create a spiritual or transcendental style in the inventive works involving "Dream Walking" in 1968 and Morris Graves in 1973. These images seemed to foreshadow the type of work in Light Warriors. To me, the most haunting works were a series of abstract partial nudes of women's torsos (usually more than one in an image) that formed a series of triangles. This perspective was transforming for me. I seldom think of the human body in terms of triangles. The triangles are references to the negative space outlined by the nudes. After you view this wonderful volume, I suggest that you think about how our concepts of the human body limit photography, and how how concepts of photography limit our ability to appreciate the human body. Why is it that no one does studies of nostrils? Or elbows? Are they less worthy than hands? Open yourself to the full potential of the physical world around you, and expand your ability to perceive the reality and potential of that world for you to partipate in.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"You might say I invented the nude.",
By wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (TOP 500 REVIEWER)
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Imogen Cunningham: On the Body (Paperback)
A bold statement for her to make, even when limited to the photographic nude. Earlier photos of people without clothes generally served scientific purposes (like Muybridge's), or salacious ones. The artistic, even abstract photographic nude may in fact be Cunningham's invention.
This samples Cunningham's career, from 1906 to 1976, from age 23 to the year of her death. That artistic longevity, if nothing else, is worthy of note. But the real strngth of the collection is in the photos themselves. The abstract photos, like 'Helen' (plate 42) and 'Roi' (plate 34) are utterly literal and utterly baffling. Each is a simple picture, but shows just how complex the interaction of human figure and viewpoint can be. Many, like plates 44 and 51, are simple celebrations of form. One thing struck me, again and again. Modern photographers often present a figure that's made up and airbrushed to polyethylene perfection - something strangely inhuman. Cunningham captures the human animal more precisely, in the delicate down of feminine skin (plate 43), the scars that record events in a person's life (plates 49 and maybe 72), goosebumps (plate 27), even stretch marks on a woman richly pregnant (plate 98). These details add depth to Cunningham's work, offering something new at every level of detail in her pictures. I highly recommend this collection, especially as it documents one of the visions that founded modern photographic style. //wiredweird
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