Convergence & Divergence

Three Artists

Two Art Forms

ONE Century of Vision

Our current exhibition, Convergence and Divergence shares the legacy of one artistic family: printmaker Roi Partridge, photographer Imogen Cunningham, and their son, photographer Rondal Partridge. The first exhibition examining these three artists together, it offers unprecedented access to personal archives. Curated by Meg Partridge, his daughter, the work spans a century of American art, illuminating the evolution of modernist vision from the early 1900s through the 21st century.

It tells an intimate story: how artistic vision travels across generations, how family members see the same world with different eyes, and how three artists kept their creative spark alive while making a living as artists.

The show draws on three unusually long careers — nearly 110 years of combined work. The selection includes celebrated masterworks alongside intimate studies rarely seen outside family collections, revealing not just what these artists achieved but how they worked, experimented, and approached their shared subjects from distinctly individual perspectives.

ARTISTS

Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976) pioneered American modernist photography across seven decades. A founding member of Group f/64 with Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, she created iconic botanical studies-her 1925 Magnolia Blossom remains one of photography's most celebrated images. She photographed Frida Kahlo, Martha Graham, Ruth Asawa and many other friends and artists in her circle.

Roi Partridge (1888-1984) trained as an etcher in Munich and Paris before marrying Imogen in 1915. While photography began generating interest in the art world, he devoted himself to etching. His technically masterful prints earned him election to the National Academy of Design. Teaching art at Mills College for twenty-six years, he quietly and consistently created a body of work that preserved landscapes - often before they vanished beneath development.

Rondal Partridge (1917-2015) literally grew up in the darkroom. At sixteen, he apprenticed with Imogen’s good friend, Dorothea Lange. Driving Dorothea through Depression-era California for one dollar a day, he absorbed Dorothea’s perspective on the critical importance of documenting human dignity and rights. He went on to work as an apprentice to Ansel Adams in Yosemite National Park, gaining masterful darkroom skills and joining Ansel in his passion for preserving the wilderness. With this youthful and quickly gained combination of technical photographic savvy, environmental awareness and passion for humanity, Rondal combined all his interests in documenting the world for eighty more years, photographing environmental destruction, parking lots in paradise, the cost of progress, and revealing human portraits.