One of the first professional female photographers in America, Imogen Cunningham is best known for her botanical photography, though she also produced images of nudes, industrial landscapes, and street scenes. After studying photography in Germany, Cunningham opened a portrait studio in Seattle. She was a founding member of the f/64 group whose members included Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and Minor White. She worked as a photographer for Vanity Fair in the 1930s. In 1937, she was included in her first major exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in the exhibition Photography, 1839-1937. In 1970, when she was 87 years old, Cunningham was granted a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her work is included in many prestigious collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, New York; the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California; and the Museum of Modern Art New York, New York.
