Aloe

Imogen Cunningham

1920s · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

The unsuspected beauty of the enlargements of leaves, stems, and buds in the book Art Forms in Nature by Karl Blossfeldt (1928) intrigued the public of the period. The American West Coast photographer Imogen Cunningham also worked with plants in the late 1920s, and her results were also acclaimed (ten of her plant photographs were seen in Film und Foto). Whereas Blossfeldt, a German professor of fine and applied art, examined botanical specimens to the art of nature's design, Cunningham was not interested in plants but in pictures--in the art she could design with plants and light, and a camera.

Artist

Imogen Cunningham

Date

1920s

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987