Imogen Cunningham

flush-mounted, with credit and title in ink and a Condé Nast barcode label on the reverse, 1932

Condé Nast Archive, New York

Sotheby's New York, 3 October 2001, Sale 7702, Lot 172

Another portrait from this sitting:

'They're Tough to be Famous,' Vanity Fair, 1 September 1932, p. 38

Richard Lorenz, Imogen Cunningham: Portraiture (Boston, 1997), p. 20, fig. 23

This early print, on semi-glossy paper, is in generally excellent condition. The print is mounted to thin board that has been trimmed nearly to the image. There is edge chipping and minor wear along the lower edge of the print. Upon the closest examination in raking light the following are barely visible: minor, soft linear creases in the lower right corner; scattered pin-point-sized impressions and deposits of original retouching; and faint silvering in the lower left corner. The reverse of the mount is soiled from handling and there are stray yellow deposits of indeterminate nature.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This forceful portrait of James Cagney was made soon after the actor caused a sensation in his break-through role in The Public Enemy.  The 1931 film portrayed a small-time thief, played by Cagney, as he rose through the ranks of criminal gangs in Prohibition America.  Perhaps best-remembered for a scene in which Cagney pushes a half-grapefruit into his girlfriend’s face, the film is regarded as one of the most influential gangster films in cinema history and made Cagney a star. 

Not a fan of the typical Hollywood celebrity portrait, Imogen Cunningham was cautious when approached with a portrait commission by Vanity Fair’s managing editor Donald Freeman.  As Cunningham wrote to Freeman from California, ‘I am presuming that you would wish me to get as far away as possible from the type of portraiture which fills the movie magazines of the day.  I should not be interested unless I might be free to try and get more character than this into the work’ (quoted in Lorenz, Ideas Without End, p. 33).   In his reply, Freeman assured Cunningham that Vanity Fair was a different sort of magazine and that she would have free reign. 

Another Cagney portrait from this sitting was published in the September 1932 issue of Vanity Fair, for the article ‘They’re Tough to be Famous.’  As Cunningham scholar Richard Lorenz observed, ‘Cunningham thoroughly enjoyed working with those personalities whom she considered “ugly,” and she was probably most satisfied by her portraits of screen villains and heavies James Cagney, Wallace Beery, and Warner Oland’ (Portraiture, p. 20). 

The photograph offered here comes originally from the files of Condé Nast, the publisher of Vanity Fair.