The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of December 19, 2025
Agave Design I
1920s
(American, 1883–1976)
Image: 34.8 x 27 cm (13 11/16 x 10 5/8 in.); Matted: 55.9 x 45.7 cm (22 x 18 in.)
© The Imogen Cunningham Trust
Location: Not on view
Description
After Cunningham closed a successful portrait studio to devote herself to parenting her three sons, she continued photographing. “Because I couldn’t get out anywhere, and I had a garden,” said Cunningham, she photographed her plants every afternoon when her children were napping. These were not picture-postcard views but extreme close-ups of plants that emphasize light and dark contrasts, detail, form, and pattern. Like this iconic image, they were unmanipulated depictions of flora, yet, at the same time, boldly abstract images. Cunningham helped blaze a trail for the recognition of photography as an art form that could go beyond documentation to explore pure expression and visual experimentation.- Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996. Reproduced: P. 134
- From Riches to Rags: American Photography in the Depression. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 13-December 31, 2017).Fotografie Forum Frankfurt, August 28 - October 3, 1993: "Die Poesie der Form (The Poetry of Form)," Schaffhausen : Edition Stemmle.CMA, February 12 - April 20, 1986: "Year in Review 1985," CMA Bulletin, 73 (Feb. 1986), p. 66, no. 94.Stanford Art Gallery, Stanford University, March 31 - April 23, 1967: Imogen Cunningham, photographs, 1921-1967, p. 4 of exhibition catalogue.
- {{cite web|title=Agave Design I|url=false|author=Imogen Cunningham|year=1920s|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1985.47