Imogen Cunningham - Photographs London Tuesday, November 22, 2022 | Phillips

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  • “The study of art means the cultivation of the eye… interpreting one’s seeing magnifies the beauty in the world around us.”
    —Imogen Cunningham

    The masterful close-up view of Imogen Cunningham’s Magnolia Blossom vividly captures her fascination with botanical subjects. Cunningham’s passionate photographic survey of the magnolia flower lasted between 1923 and 1925. Taken in 1925, the present work is an exquisite example of her modernist approach – oscillating between representation and abstraction, the petals become a transfixing study of light, shadow and translucence. Working closely with contemporaries, Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, Cunningham established herself as a pioneering female American photographer and her legacy continues to be celebrated. A major retrospective of Cunningham’s work was shown at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles earlier this year and the work on offer was featured in Dulwich Picture Gallery’s 2002 exhibition Unearthed: Photography’s Roots.

    • Provenance

      The John M. Bransten Collection, San Francisco
      Christie's, New York, Portrait of a Collector: The John M. Bransten Collection of Photographs, 6 April 2017, lot 8

    • Exhibited

      Unearthed: Photography's Roots, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 17 June - 20 September, this lot

    • Literature

      Imogen Cunningham Photographs 1910-1973, Seattle: University of Washington, 1970, pl. 11
      Imogen Cunningham, Frontiers: Photographs 1906-1976, Berkeley: The Imogen Cunningham Trust, 1978, table 4, image C, pl. 34
      J. Dater at al., Imogen Cunningham: A Portrait, London: Gordon Fraser, 1979, pl. 11
      R. Lorenz, Imogen Cunningham: Ideas without End, A Life in Photographs, San Francisco: Chronicle, 1993, pl. 38, p. 103
      R. Lorenz, Imogen Cunningham: Flora, Boston: Little, Brown, 1996, pl. 11
      Imogen Cunningham: A Retrospective, Los Angeles: Getty, 2020, cover & pl. 43, p. 117
      Unearthed: Photography’s Roots, London: Dulwich Picture Gallery, 2020, p. 103

A VIEW FROM THE GARDEN: PHOTOGRAPHS FROM A PRIVATE COTSWOLDS COLLECTION

4

Magnolia Blossom

1925
Gelatin silver print, printed later, mounted.
27 x 34.5 cm (10 5/8 x 13 5/8 in.)
Signed and dated in pencil on the mount; typed title and date on an Imogen Cunningham Trust label with signature facsimile affixed to the reverse of the mount.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
£12,000 - 18,000 

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RPeart@phillips.com

Yuka Yamaji
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Photographs

London Auction 22 November 2022