Among the first female photographers to represent the female nude, Imogen Cunningham challenged gender restrictions in both her profession and her art. Given the span of her career, from 1910 to the mid-70s, the variety of Cunningham’s subjects and techniques should be no surprise. The photographer, who earned a university degree in the chemistry of photographic processes, employed a meticulous yet ever restless eye. While this testifies to an abundant imagination, it has also made her influence less identifiable than that of her contemporaries, such as Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, or Berenice Abbott. It is, perhaps, a quality of reflective quiet that epitomizes Cunningham’s art across time. In all of her photos we sense not only her concentration, but the vibrancy of being in subjects animate and inanimate. —Albert Mobilio