Imogen

The Life and Work

of Imogen Cunningham

A TRUE TALE WITH

A CHERRY ON TOP

Viking Books for Young Readers

(Penguin Random House)

pub. 8.26.2025

40 pages

Ages 4 - 8

Author: Elizabeth Partridge

   Illustrator: Yuko Shimizu

Character:  Imogen Cunningham

Overview:

"Imogen Cunningham loved to observe the world. She noticed the colors in the woods outside her house and how light and shadows moved between the trees. She tried to capture this beauty on paper with pencils, but something was missing. One day she read about a woman in Paris who earned a living as a photographer, and she knew she was meant to do the same. With the support of her loving father, she then began her journey to become one of the most important photographers in America."

Tantalizing taste:

"Imogen and her friends went out in the woods and read poetry

to one another. She draped them in gauzy fabrics and took photographs

as they acted out the poems.

Inside her darkroom, she developed the negatives and made prints,

then hung them up to dry.

There it was, right in the photographs, all the soft cadence of the

poetry, all the beauty, all the feelings she carried deep inside her.

Nothing was missing."

And something more: Elizabeth Partridge in the Author's Note explains: "Imogen Cunningham was my grandmother. To me, she was always very old, and always a photographer. Cameras and taking photographs and making beautiful prints were all woven so deeply in her, it was impossible to separate Imogen from her photography. Photography was not something she did; it was who she was.…

I learned to watch my grandmother in the garden with her plants, or when we were out together on the steep, busy streets. I wanted to see what she was noticing, see what caught her eye. 'I don't hunt for things,' she said. 'I just wait till something strikes me.' Ordinary moments that I overlooked would capture her attention: someone counting out change in the palm of their hand or the zigzagging shadow of outside stairs against a wooden building."