Imogen and Twinka at Yosemite [SEP] creator
Imogen and Twinka at Yosemite
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's painting "Persephone", which portrays a voyeur observing a nude woman reclining against a tree, who had been bathing in a stream.
Background.
Dater had been familiar with Benton's 1938
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. In 1999, critic Margarett Loke said that the photo "remains a delightful send-up of a photographer with a nude subject". In 2011, critic Donna Stein wrote that "Dater reverses the traditional erotic relationship of a