Imogen Cunningham

Acquired from the above

Constance Sullivan, ed., Women Photographers (New York, 1990), pl. 37

Douglas R. Nickel, Picturing Modernity: Highlights from the Photography Collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1998), pl. 21

Happy Birthday Photography: Bokelberg Sammlung (Kunsthaus Zürich, 1989), pl. 107

This early print of Snake in a Bucket comes originally from the collection of Tom Eckstrom (1950-2010), who worked as Cunningham's darkroom assistant between 1973 and her death in 1976. Prints of this image are scarce. Another contact print is at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, gifted in 1963 with The Henry Swift Collection by his widow, Florence Alston Swift. Three enlargements have been located: at the Art Institute of Chicago, given by gallerist Julien Levy and his wife Jean; previously in the collection of photographer and collector, Werner Bokelberg; and in a private collection. Only one other early print of this image is believed to have been offered at auction: an enlargement sold at Sotheby's in 2014 on behalf of the Joy of Giving Something Foundation (Sale 9275, Lot 26).  

Snake in a Bucket is one of a series of photographs in which Cunningham focused her camera on a sinuous garden snake. In the early 1920s, with young children at home, she found inspiration in the plants and objects in her immediate surroundings. Of this period, she said, ‘Ron and Pad, my twin boys, were great persons for hunting for things that interested them and that were interesting to me, too—such as snakes, which they carried home in their pockets. Pad was very good at holding their tails . . .’ (Dialogue with Photography, p. 233).

Cunningham made at least six negatives of snakes throughout the 1920s, including three views of Snake in a Bucket and the unusual ‘Negative,—Snake’ from 1927, in which she manipulated an earlier 1921 image to produce a negative variant unique to her oeuvre. Prints titled ‘Snake’ and ‘Negative,—Snake’ were among the 40 photographs Cunningham selected for her 1932 one-woman exhibition, Impressions in Silver, at the Los Angeles Museum.