View source for Imogen and Twinka at Yosemite

{{short description|1974 photograph by Judy Dater}}
{{Italic title}}
{{Infobox artwork
| title       = ''Imogen and Twinka at Yosemite''
| image_file  = File:Imogen and Twinka at Yosemite - Judy Dater, 1974.jpg
| artist      = [[Judy Dater]]
| year        = {{start date|1974}}
| type        = photograph
| material    = [[Gelatin silver print]]
| subject     = portrait, nude
| coordinates = <!-- Only use for the exact coordinates of the artwork itself (and only where known) and not for the coordinates of the museum. Leave blank if coordinates are not known. -->
}}
'''''Imogen and Twinka at Yosemite''''' is a 1974 photograph by [[Judy Dater]]. It depicts elderly photographer [[Imogen Cunningham]], encountering nude model [[Twinka Thiebaud]] behind a tree in [[Yosemite National Park]]. It is considered Dater's most popular photograph and according to the photographer, was inspired by [[Thomas Hart Benton (painter)|Thomas Hart Benton's]] painting ''[[Persephone (painting)|Persephone]]'', which portrays a voyeur observing a nude woman reclining against a tree, who had been bathing in a stream.<ref name=Zakia/>
==Background==
Dater had been familiar with Benton's 1938–39 ''[[Persephone (painting)|Persephone]]'' painting and its theme of [[voyeurism]] since her childhood, and it inspired her to attempt several earlier photos based on that theme. She has said that it "really worked" with this particular photo, because "it's a twist, given that it's two women looking at each other."<ref name = PF/>
At the time the photograph was taken, Cunningham was 90 years old and had been a famous photographer for 60 years. Dater had been a friend and admirer for the previous ten years, and considered Cunningham her mentor. The nude model, Twinka Thiebaud, was the daughter of painter [[Wayne Thiebaud]]. Dater had earlier photographed Twinka fully clothed, in 1970.<ref name="R1"/>
The photograph was taken as part of a workshop called "The Nude in the Landscape", organized by [[Ansel Adams]], that had about 100 students. Dater was one of the instructors, and Cunningham was a guest lecturer.<ref name = PF/> According to Twinka Thiebaud, the event started out in an undisciplined way. The clueless students swarmed around the nude models, and they "pounced like paparazzi", and were "unruly and disorganized".<ref name = PF/> Dater, Cunningham and Thiebaud stepped away from the crowd, and approached the tree. There, as many of the students gathered around her, Dater demonstrated how to work with a model. This photograph was the result.<ref name = PF/>
==Critical reaction==
The photo was immediately the subject of feminist critical analysis. In 1974, critic Lucy Dougan wrote that the photo "parodies depictions of male voyeurism in the history of Western art, as it playfully amends all those mythical violations of sacred places. It juxtaposes the city against the pastorale: Cunningham's technological baggage of city life/city seeing hangs around her neck in the form of a large camera, but here it is obsolete and new ways of seeing and old narratives come together."<ref name=Dougan/> She went on to compare the photo to a poem by [[Kathleen Raine]] that talks about an old woman's memory of her young breasts, but concludes that the photo has a "much lighter tone of heart" than the poem.<ref name=Dougan/>
In 1997, critic Sarah Boxer described the photo as "Imogen Cunningham sneaking around the trunk of a giant tree in Yosemite National Park and coming upon Twinka, a nude model who has one leg propped on a root and is looking around coyly" and called it "an amusing play" on the goddess [[Diana (mythology)|Diana]].<ref name="R2"/> In 1999, critic Margarett Loke said that the photo "remains a delightful send-up of a photographer with a nude subject".<ref name="R3"/> In 2011, critic Donna Stein wrote that "Dater reverses the traditional erotic relationship of a leering old man eyeing a voluptuous nude to show two women - youth and old age - confronting each other."<ref name=Grove/> Stein reports that the photo "pays homage to the Persephone myth as portrayed in a painting by Thomas Hart Benton".<ref name=Grove/>
==Legacy==
The photograph was widely seen when reproduced in a profile of Cunningham in a 1976 [[Life (magazine)|''Life'' magazine]] special on "Remarkable American Women".<ref>{{multiref|
{{cite magazine |magazine=Life |date=1976 |issue=Special Report on Remarkable American Women |title=The Creative Impulse : Imogen Cunningham |page=41 }} |
reproduced in {{cite book |title=Life, the first fifty years, 1936–1986 |date=1986 |publisher=Little, Brown |location=Boston |isbn=978-0-316-52614-2 |page=255 |url=https://archive.org/details/lifefirstfiftyye0000unse/page/255}}
}}</ref>
John Hildebidle, poet and literature professor at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]],<ref name="R4"/> has written a poem inspired by the photograph.<ref name="R5"/> Prints of the photo are in the collections of the [[Los Angeles County Museum of Art]]<ref name="R6"/> and [[Smith College Museum of Art]].<ref name="R7"/> The photo was part of an exhibition on the art of Yosemite which appeared at the [[Autry National Center]], the [[Oakland Museum of California]], the [[Nevada Museum of Art]] and the [[Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art]] from 2006 to 2008.<ref name="R8"/>
==References==
{{Reflist|2|refs=
<ref name=Zakia>{{cite book
| last = Zakia | first = Richard D. | title = Perception and Imaging: Photography--A Way of Seeing
| publisher = [[Taylor & Francis]] | date = 2013 | location = [[London]] | pages = 319–322
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=tlYmF9nwVlYC&q=Imogen+Twinka+Yosemite&pg=PA319
| isbn = 9780240824536 }}
</ref>
<ref name = PF>{{cite news
| last = Sykes | first = Claire | title = Judy Dater: Seeing and Being Seen
| newspaper = Photographer's Forum | location = [[Santa Barbara, California]] | pages = 10–20
| publisher = Serbin Communications | date = Fall 2012
| url = http://static.squarespace.com/static/51dc7e6ee4b02bbec3257efd/t/522e248ee4b06bf96fa2190e/1378755726308/Photographer's%20Forum%20Magazine,edit.pdf
| access-date = April 5, 2014
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160303225828/http://static.squarespace.com/static/51dc7e6ee4b02bbec3257efd/t/522e248ee4b06bf96fa2190e/1378755726308/Photographer's%20Forum%20Magazine,edit.pdf
| archive-date = March 3, 2016 | url-status = dead }}
</ref>
<ref name="R1">{{cite news
| last = Coleman | first = A.D. | title = Photography: Do Men Have It Any Easier?
| newspaper = [[New York Times]] | date = January 13, 1974
| url = https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1974/01/13/148745662.pdf
| access-date = April 6, 2014 }}
</ref>
<ref name=Dougan>{{cite book
| last = Dougan | first = Lucy | editor-last1 = Fraser | editor-first1 = Hilary
| editor-last2 = White | editor-first2 = R. S.
| title = Constructing Gender: Feminism and Literary Studies | place = [[Perth]]
| publisher = [[UWA Publishing]] | year = 1994 | chapter = Women's Bodies and Metamorphosis
| page = 14
| chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=YA82AjnDORoC&q=Imogen+Twinka+Yosemite&pg=PA15
| isbn = 9781875560349 }}
</ref>
<ref name="R2">{{cite news
| last = Boxer | first = Sarah | title = PHOTOGRAPHY REVIEW; Beauty, in a Variety of Guises
| newspaper = [[New York Times]] | date = September 19, 1997
| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/19/arts/photography-review-beauty-in-a-variety-of-guises.html
| access-date = April 6, 2014}}
</ref>
<ref name="R3">{{cite news
| last = Loke | first = Margarett
| title = PHOTOGRAPHY REVIEW; Celebrating a Departure, With a Bow to the Body
| newspaper = [[New York Times]] | date = June 25, 1999
| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/25/arts/photography-review-celebrating-a-departure-with-a-bow-to-the-body.html
| access-date = April 6, 2014 }}
</ref>
<ref name=Grove>{{cite book
| last = Stein | first = Donna | editor-last = Marter | editor-first = Joan
| title = The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art | publisher = [[Oxford University Press]]
| volume = 1 | chapter = Judy Dater | year = 2011 | pages = 22–23
| chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=sPGdBxzaWj0C&q=Imogen+Twinka+Yosemite&pg=RA1-PA22
| isbn = 9780195335798 }}
</ref>
<ref name="R4">{{cite web
| title = Faculty: John Hildebidle | work = LIT@MIT
| publisher = [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] | date = 2011
| url = http://lit.mit.edu/lit2010-2011/people/jhildebidle.php | access-date = April 6, 2014
| archive-url = https://archive.today/20140407034109/http://lit.mit.edu/lit2010-2011/people/jhildebidle.php
| archive-date = April 7, 2014 | url-status = dead }}
</ref>
<ref name="R5">{{cite book
| last = Hildebidle | first = John | title = Defining Absence | publisher = Salmon Publishing
| date = 1999 | location = [[Cliffs of Moher]], [[Republic of Ireland]] | pages = 31
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=E307pzooMpMC&q=Imogen+and+Twinka+at+Yosemite&pg=PA31
| isbn = 9781897648582 }}
</ref>
<ref name="R6">{{cite web
| title = Imogen Cunningham and Twinka, Yosemite | publisher = [[Los Angeles County Museum of Art]]
| url = http://collections.lacma.org/node/196848 | access-date = April 6, 2014 }}
</ref>
<ref name="R7">{{cite web
| title = Collections Database: Search Results
| publisher = Five Colleges and Historic Deerfield Museum Consortium
| url = http://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?museum=sc&t=objects&type=all&f=&s=SC+1977.10.6&record=0
| access-date = April 18, 2021}}
</ref>
<ref name="R8">{{cite book
| last = Scott | first = Amy | title = Yosemite: Art of an American Icon
| publisher = Autry National Center and University of California Press
| location = Los Angeles and Berkeley | year = 2006
| pages = [https://archive.org/details/yosemiteartofame0000unse/page/138 138] | isbn = 9780520249226
| url = https://archive.org/details/yosemiteartofame0000unse/page/138}}
</ref>
}}
[[Category:Black-and-white photographs]]
[[Category:Photographs of the United States]]
[[Category:Nude photography]]
[[Category:Collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art]]
[[Category:1974 works]]
[[Category:1974 in art]]
[[Category:1970s photographs]]
[[Category:Yosemite National Park]]