"I'd never kill myself for a man. I wouldn't do it for anybody"
About this Quote
The voice is flinty and unsentimental: life will not be bartered for romance or approval. Imogen Cunningham, a pioneering American photographer who worked for nearly seven decades, knew how easily a woman could be urged to pour herself out for others until nothing is left. Refusing to kill oneself for a man is not only a rejection of melodramatic myths about love; it is a refusal to treat self-erasure as virtue. Extending the line to anybody widens the stance into an ethic of self-preservation, a boundary against any demand that would reduce a person to their usefulness.
Cunninghams life gives the sentence extra weight. Working in an era that expected women to be helpmates, she forged an independent career, producing audacious male nudes early on, sensuous botanicals, exacting industrial studies, and unsparing portraits of artists and celebrities. She married, raised three sons, and kept photographing when marriage faltered, supporting herself through her art. The clarity of her voice echoes the clarity she and her Group f/64 peers prized: no soft focus, no sentimentality, just the subject seen honestly. Her dictum aligns with that aesthetic, stripping away cultural haze around sacrifice and naming what it can cost.
The phrase kill myself also gestures toward the ordinary ways people are asked to do just that: working to exhaustion to keep the peace, sacrificing time, credit, and health for someone elses vision. Cunningham insists that devotion without self-respect degrades both the giver and the work. Her long life and late-career vigor underscore the point. She kept looking, experimenting, and publishing into her nineties, as if to prove that endurance, not martyrdom, sustains creativity.
The line reads as feminist defiance, but also as practical wisdom about art and living. Love may inspire, community may sustain, and work may demand, yet none of these deserves the ultimate cost. The person behind the lens must remain alive to see.
Cunninghams life gives the sentence extra weight. Working in an era that expected women to be helpmates, she forged an independent career, producing audacious male nudes early on, sensuous botanicals, exacting industrial studies, and unsparing portraits of artists and celebrities. She married, raised three sons, and kept photographing when marriage faltered, supporting herself through her art. The clarity of her voice echoes the clarity she and her Group f/64 peers prized: no soft focus, no sentimentality, just the subject seen honestly. Her dictum aligns with that aesthetic, stripping away cultural haze around sacrifice and naming what it can cost.
The phrase kill myself also gestures toward the ordinary ways people are asked to do just that: working to exhaustion to keep the peace, sacrificing time, credit, and health for someone elses vision. Cunningham insists that devotion without self-respect degrades both the giver and the work. Her long life and late-career vigor underscore the point. She kept looking, experimenting, and publishing into her nineties, as if to prove that endurance, not martyrdom, sustains creativity.
The line reads as feminist defiance, but also as practical wisdom about art and living. Love may inspire, community may sustain, and work may demand, yet none of these deserves the ultimate cost. The person behind the lens must remain alive to see.
Quote Details
| Topic | Self-Love |
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