Born in Portland, USA in 1883. Died in 1976 in San Francisco, USA.
Cunningham was one of the first professional female photographers in America and is best known for her botanical photography. After studying photography in Germany, Cunningham opened a portrait studio in Seattle, producing soft-focus allegorical prints in the tradition of Pictorialism. In 1932 she joined an association of modernist photographers known as f/64, rejecting sentimental soft-focus subjects in favor of greater sensuousness. Among the members of f/64 were Edward Weston, Ansel Adams and Willard van Dyke. Cunningham was also interested in human subjects and frequently took pictures of the hands of musicians and artists. She associated at various times with other iconic 20th-century photographers, including Minor White, and Dorothea Lange.
Cunningham’s works are represented in international collections such as the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, USA; International Center of Photography, USA; Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA; Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Japan; Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA; SFMOMA, San Francisco, USA.
