Leaf Pattern

Photography and Media

1925/29

Imogen Cunningham
American, 1883–1976

Within her seven-decade photographic career, Imogen Cunningham is perhaps best known for her work in the 1920s and 1930s: close, clear, abstract images of organic forms, particularly botanical specimens. Photographer Edward Weston, who coordinated the American section of the 1929 exhibition Film und Foto, a major German survey of international photographic modernism, selected eight of her plant studies to join the landmark exhibition. In 1932 Weston and Cunningham joined fellow California photographers in forming Group f/64, named after the aperture on a view camera that generated a maximally sharp image across the full depth of field. Cunningham had sent a set of photographs, including this print of the leaves of a giant honey bush, earlier that year to New York gallerist Julien Levy. Whereas this print features even tones on a matte-finish paper, subsequent prints of the image appear on the glossy, high-contrast paper favored by f/64 members.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Photography and Media

Artist: Imogen Cunningham
Title: Leaf Pattern
Place: United States (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: Made 1925–1929
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Inscriptions: Inscribed recto, on mount, lower right, below image, in graphite: "Imogen Cunningham"; verso unchecked
Dimensions: Image/paper: 29.5 × 22.6 cm (11 5/8 × 8 15/16 in.); Mount: 35.5 × 27.8 cm (14 × 11 in.)
Credit Line: Julien Levy Collection, Gift of Jean and Julien Levy
Reference Number: 1975.1135

Travis, David. 1976. “Photographs from the Julien Levy Collection: Starting with Atget.” Exh. cat. p. 39, cat. 46.

Art Institute of Chicago, Gallery 10 Permanent Collection Rotation, May 10-September 28, 2014.
Art Institute of Chicago, “Photographs from the Julien Levy Collection: Starting with Atget,” December 11, 1976–February 20, 1977; traveled to the International Center of Photography, New York, April 21-May 29, 1977; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, November 4-December 18 1977; Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, January 13-Ferbruary 26, 1978; Lakeview Center for the Arts and Sciences, Peoria, Illinois, March 16-April 30, 1978; and Cincinnati Art Museum, November 17-December 24, 1978. (David Travis)
Berlin, Germany, Berlinsche Galerie, “Station Der Moderne,” September 25, 1988–January 6, 1989.
Art Institute of Chicago, “Distant Relations,” May 8–July 18, 1993. (David Travis)
Art Institute of Chicago, “The Other Side of Light: Shadows from the Photography Collection” December 1, 2007–February 24, 2008. (Newell G. Smith)

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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