Two Callas, 1929
Gelatin silver print, printed 1974
Signed and dated on mount
Print: 11 ½ × 9 inches
Mount: 19 × 15 inches
Witkin Gallery frame label on verso
Septmeber 11, 2023
This supremely elegant photograph illustrates why Imogen Cunningham’s botanical pictures are a keystone of modernist photography. In the 1920s, Cunningham was living in Oakland and was largely confined to her home while raising her three small children. She had worked in the botany department at the University of Washington, and she used that knowledge to cultivate a garden that would supply close-at-hand subjects which could fulfill her drive to create. This work exemplifies her move away from the soft focus of her early pictorialist work, and her embrace of the crystal clear imagery that made her, and the other Group f/64 photographers, widely influential.
In 1929, the seminal Film und Foto (FIFO) exhibition was held in Stuttgart, and served as a platform for the modernist vision of “New Photography”. Edward Weston, another key Group f/64 photographer, included eight of Cunningham's botanical photographs in his nomination for inclusion in the show. As a result, this classic picture Two Callas debuted in that landmark exhibition.
