Kanaga and Cunningham Interpreted

Sue and I spent much of this day remaking a photo by Hella Hamid of two great photographers who were lifelong friends: Consuelo Kanaga (embodied by Kendall) and Imogen Cunningham (embodied by Sue)—see Extra. Getting the light and the angles just as Hella Hamid (whose name is sometimes spelled Hammid) shot them was difficult, and her hair was impossible, but we had a great time trying.

Both Kanaga and Cunningham were born in Oregon, in 1894 and 1893 respectively, and they were both members of the f6.4 group (and exhibit) of 1932, when they were 38 and 39. Kanaga was a portrait photographer who traveled in Alabama, made photos of African-American people in the South. She was an anti-racist and anti-capitalist activist who documented the Civil Rights movement in 1964 in Georgia. Some of her photographs were included in Steichen's Family of Man exhibit that opened in 1955, when I was a ten-year-old living in Queens. I got hold of a catalog of the exhibit and studied it intensely as a child. 

Kanaga described Cunningham in a letter to Edward Steichen: “She is the greatest woman I have ever known in Photography. Generous, human, and brave.” Kanaga’s biographer says these were qualities often attributed to Kanaga by others.

They are both inspirations to Sue and to me.