The Unmade Bed

A promoter of sharply focused, unmanipulated imagery, Cunningham's career as a photographer spanned more than seven decades. This piece combines her concern for light, form and abstract patterns. Cunningham often articulated the lines and textures of her subjects with natural light and their own gestures. In this work she has given the bedding an organic feel, not wholly unlike the floral photographs she is acclaimed for. The artist wrote: "Photography when employed to its highest potential, should not create abstractions and fantastical images, but should examine beauty as it already exists in nature…There are plenty of subtleties of life right on the earth, which need a delicate interpretation."