id: 325453 accession number: 2019.23 share license status: Copyrighted url: https://clevelandart.org/art/2019.23 updated: 2020-11-06 10:00:38.783000 Magnolia Blossom (Tower of Jewels), 1925 (printed 1930s). Imogen Cunningham (American, 1883-1976). Gelatin silver print; image: 24.2 x 18.7 cm (9 1/2 x 7 3/8 in.); paper: 25.2 x 20.2 cm (9 15/16 x 7 15/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Diann G. Mann and Thomas A. Mann 2019.23 © The Imogen Cunningham Trust title: Magnolia Blossom (Tower of Jewels) title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1925 (printed 1930s) creation date earliest: 1925 creation date latest: 1925 current location: creditline: Gift of Diann G. Mann and Thomas A. Mann copyright: © The Imogen Cunningham Trust --- culture: America technique: gelatin silver print department: Photography collection: PH - American 1900-1950 type: Photograph find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Imogen Cunningham (American, 1883-1976) - artist Imogen Cunningham American, 1883-1976 Born in Portland, Oregon, Imogen Cunningham became one of America's most admired photographers during a career that spanned seven decades. She took her first photographs in Seattle in 1901 and later worked for photographer Edward S. Curtis (1907-9). While assisting in Curtis's studio, Cunningham learned the platinum printing process, a technique she used for the soft-focus pictorial style she then favored. In 1910, upon her return to Seattle after a year studying photographic chemistry at the Technische Hochschule in Dresden, Cunningham opened a portrait studio. She moved to San Francisco with her husband, Roi Partridge, in 1917 and in the 1920s began a series of sharply focused, closeup studies of plant forms. Emphasizing light, form, and abstract pattern, these images were included in Film und Foto, the influential exhibition of avant-garde photography and film held in Stuttgart in 1929. Three years later, Cunningham joined Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Willard Van Dyke, and others in forming Group f/64. Throughout her long career Cunningham exhibited her work widely and was featured in several documentaries. Among retrospectives of her photography were Imogen! Imogen Cunningham Photographs 1910-1973, at the Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington (1974), and A Centennial Selection at the California Academy of Arts and Sciences, San Francisco (1983). Her subject matter ranged from portraits and closeup studies of plants, flowers, and nudes to unconventional views of modern architecture. Portraiture, however, held special interest. When Cunningham died in 1976, she was working on a book featuring portraits of people over 90 years of age (published posthumously in 1977 as After Ninety). M.M. --- measurements: Image: 24.2 x 18.7 cm (9 1/2 x 7 3/8 in.); Paper: 25.2 x 20.2 cm (9 15/16 x 7 15/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Written in pencil on verso: “F5 204 25 + 15 D72” translation: remark: inscription: Imprinted in black type on white paper label adhered to foam core backing board: “IMOGEN CUNNINGHAM (American 1883-1976)/TOWER OF JEWELS 1925/Vintage gelatin silver enlargement print on/warm toned paper, 9 3/8 x 6 7/8”. Printed/by the photographer in San Francisco from/the original negative, ca. 1930. Illustrated: Imogen Cunningham Photographs 1910-1973/(1974, Seattle; University of Washington/Press) pg 72; Women of the 20’s and 30’s (1988/Chicago; Edwynn Houk Gallery) pg 13./Provenance: Ron Partridge (The Artist’s son)” translation: remark: inscription: Imprinted in black type on white adhesive label on verso of foam core backing board: “SPECIAL ATTENTION: This art work is/covered with Plexiglas! Do not use glass/cleaners or abrasives. DO NOT TAPE” translation: remark: inscription: Imprinted in black type on beige label adhered to foam core backing board: “04-OCT-18/Sale 16381/Lot 34/Christie’s” translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE Rondal Partridge date: footnotes: citations: Sotheby's, New York, NY date: April 23, 1994 footnotes: citations: Thomas A. and Diann G. Mann date: April 23, 1994 footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: This work’s metaphorical title refers to an elaborately ornamented, tiered tower of that name at the 1915 San Francisco Panama-Pacific Exposition. digital description: “Because I couldn’t get out anywhere, and I had a garden,” said Cunningham, she photographed her plants every afternoon when her children were napping. These were not picture-postcard views but extreme close-ups that emphasize light and dark contrasts, detail, form, and pattern. Like this iconic image, they were unmanipulated depictions of flora that go beyond botanical detail to suggest abstraction and metaphor. wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Cunningham, Imogen, Margery Mann, and Adrian Wilson. Imogen!: Imogen Cunningham Photographs, 1910-1973. 1974. page number: p. 72 url: Lorenz, Richard, and Imogen Cunningham. Imogen Cunningham: Ideas Without End : a Life in Photographs. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1993. page number: p. 103, pl. 38 url: Pradip Malde, Imogen Cunningham: Die Poesie des Form/The Poetry of Form, Edition Stemmle, Zurich, 1994 page number: p. 36 url: Lorenz, Richard, and Imogen Cunningham. Imogen Cunningham: Flora. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1996. page number: p. 11 url: Christie, Manson & Woods International Inc. An American Journey: The Diann G. and Thomas A. Mann Collection of Photographic Masterworks. 2018. page number: url: --- IMAGES