Frida Kahlo

This portrait of the legendary Mexican painter Frida Kahlo is an example of Imogen Cunningham's transition from the soft-edged, Pictorialist aesthetic to a more direct, modernist style. Made in the same year that Diego Rivera was completing his murals for the San Francisco Stock Exchange, this image has been widely reproduced, but it is rarely seen in such a fine print. Posed in the ambience of a soft modulating light, and wearing a traditional shawl around her shoulders, Kahlo looks frankly at the photographer with strength and stoicism. Cunningham noted in a letter: "this photograph represents a woman whose work I greatly admire, more than I admire her husband!"