Art Expressions Gallery of San Diego is presenting an exhibition of portraits, botanicals, and nudes by Imogen Cunningham, one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century, now through June 11.

    The works in the exhibition span her 70-year career. They range from a soft-focus almost nude self-portrait photographed in a secluded part of the University of Washington campus in 1906 to abstract photographs taken in the 1970s.

    The exhibition includes Cunningham’s portraits of some of the most renowned artists of her time, including painter Frida Kahlo, dancer Martha Graham and photographers Dorothea Lange, Alfred Stieglitz, and Edward Weston. 

    Cunningham was a founding member of Group f/64, a society of prominent West Coast photographers that included Ansel Adams and Weston. The society was devoted to furthering the art form through the unique qualities of the medium.

    Unlike Adams and other members of the Western School of Photography who emphasized nature on a grand scale, Cunningham created intimate compositions that call attention to the abstract qualities of nature.  She is famous for her exquisitely detailed, sensuous photographs of botanicals that expose her subject’s inner structure. 

    A stridently independent woman, Cunningham avoided all stereotypes, refusing to be pigeonholed as a feminist, although she supported women’s rights. In 1913 at age 30, she published Photography as a Profession for Women, an article urging women to take up careers in the profession, not to outdo men, but to try to do something for themselves.

    Now through May 22, the Oceanside Museum of Art is presenting Botanicals: The Photography of Imogen Cunningham, which was sponsored in part by Art Expressions Gallery.