The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 23, 2025

Magnolia Blossom (Tower of Jewels)

1925 (printed 1930s)

Imogen Cunningham

(American, 1883–1976)
America
gelatin silver print
Image: 24.2 x 18.7 cm (9 1/2 x 7 3/8 in.); Paper: 25.2 x 20.2 cm (9 15/16 x 7 15/16 in.)
Gift of Diann G. Mann and Thomas A. Mann 2019.23
© The Imogen Cunningham Trust
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

This work’s metaphorical title refers to an elaborately ornamented, tiered tower of that name at the 1915 San Francisco Panama-Pacific Exposition.

Description

“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 that emphasize light and dark contrasts, detail, form, and pattern. Like this iconic image, they were unmanipulated depictions of flora that go beyond botanical detail to suggest abstraction and metaphor.
  • Rondal Partridge
    April 23, 1994
    Sotheby's, New York, NY
    April 23, 1994
    Thomas A. and Diann G. Mann
  • Cunningham, Imogen, Margery Mann, and Adrian Wilson. Imogen!: Imogen Cunningham Photographs, 1910-1973. 1974. p. 72
    Lorenz, Richard, and Imogen Cunningham. Imogen Cunningham: Ideas Without End : a Life in Photographs. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1993. p. 103, pl. 38
    Pradip Malde, Imogen Cunningham: Die Poesie des Form/The Poetry of Form, Edition Stemmle, Zurich, 1994 p. 36
    Lorenz, Richard, and Imogen Cunningham. Imogen Cunningham: Flora. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1996. p. 11
    Christie, Manson & Woods International Inc. An American Journey: The Diann G. and Thomas A. Mann Collection of Photographic Masterworks. 2018.
  • {{cite web|title=Magnolia Blossom (Tower of Jewels)|url=false|author=Imogen Cunningham|year=1925 (printed 1930s)|access-date=23 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2019.23