In the 1910s, photographer Consuelo Kanaga set an important precedent—she became the first female staff photographer at a major U.S. newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle. Meanwhile, Kanaga connected with the Bay Area’s artistic community and the photographers Anne Brigman, Edward Weston, and Louis Dahl. After a stint in New York City, where she worked closely with Alfred Stieglitz, Kanaga returned home by rail and organized, in 1926, an exhibition for Tina Modotti. Over the next decades, Kanaga traveled across Europe, the U.S., and Tunisia, capturing poignant photographs of forgotten communities. In 1963, she was arrested in Georgia during the civil rights Walk for Peace. Kanaga never became as well known as her male peers. She died in 1978, at 83. A 1992 article from the University of Washington Press describes her as “one of America’s most transcendent yet, surprisingly, least-known photographers.” This exhibition at SFMOMA places the work and the woman before us. —Elena Clavarino