Imogen Cunningham
Magnolia Blossom, Tower of Jewels

Magnolia Blossom, Tower of Jewels

© Imogen Cunningham Trust

Magnolia Blossom, Tower of Jewels
Magnolia Blossom, Tower of Jewels
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Magnolia Blossom, Tower of Jewels
Date1925
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 12 5/8 × 9 1/4 in. (32 × 23.5 cm)
Sheet: 13 15/16 × 10 7/8 in. (35.4 × 27.7 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund, The Manfred Heiting Collection
Object number2002.2829
Not on view

Explore Further

Department
Photography
Object Type
Description


Carefully composed and sharply focused, Imogen Cunningham’s photograph captures all the sensuous detail and patterned complexity of a magnolia blossom. Extolling the camera’s ability to capture the forms of the natural world with clarity and precision, Cunningham soon joined like-minded West Coast photographers, including Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, in forming Group f/64. The group’s members were united by their modernist conception of photography grounded in the medium’s inherent qualities, in sharp contrast to the previous generation’s softly focused Pictorialist work, which they viewed as sentimental and derivative of painting and earlier art forms.



ProvenanceEx-collection Rondal Partridge; [Edwyn Houk Gallery, Chicago]; purchased by Manfred Heiting; purchased by MFAH, 2002.

Exhibition History"Film und Foto", Deutscher Werkbund, Stuttgart, 1929; "Photographs from the Julian Levi Collection", The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 1976.

"American Vision: Photographers from the West, Selections from the Manfred Heiting Collection purchased by the Brown Foundation for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston from August 23-February 1, 2004.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
no apparent inscriptions

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

If you have questions about this work of art or the MFAH Online Collection please contact us.

Magnolia Bud
Imogen Cunningham
1920s
Gelatin silver print
76.268
Snake in Bucket 3
Imogen Cunningham
1920
Gelatin silver print
2002.855
Calla
Imogen Cunningham
late 1920s
Gelatin silver print
2000.345
Untitled
Imogen Cunningham
January 29, 1965
Gelatin silver print
2003.155
Untitled
Imogen Cunningham
1928, printed after 1980
Gelatin silver print, contact sheet
2007.276
Untitled
Imogen Cunningham
1928, printed after 1980
Gelatin silver print, contact sheet
2007.275
Madame Ozenfant
Imogen Cunningham
1935
Gelatin silver print
2004.1392
Hands of Roi Partridge at the Etching Press
Imogen Cunningham
1930
Gelatin silver print
88.81
On Mount Rainer 5
Imogen Cunningham
1915
Gelatin silver print
80.114
Roi on the Dipsea Trail 5
Imogen Cunningham
1918
Gelatin silver print
80.113
Edward and Margrethe 4
Imogen Cunningham
1922
Gelatin silver print
87.358
Gryff in Catcher's Mask
Imogen Cunningham
February 1924
Gelatin silver print
91.517