Peter Cunningham is an American photographer who is best known for his concert and theatre photographs made in New York City in the 1970s and 1980s.
Family and education
Cunningham is the eldest son of the American
cloud physicist Robert M. Cunningham and his Austrian-born wife Claire Steinhardt, a chemist and high school teacher.
He graduated from
Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School
Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School (LSRHS or L-S) is a public regional high school in Sudbury, Massachusetts, with a 99% graduation-rate. The school was founded in 1954, and the building was replaced prior to the 2004–2005 academic year, wi ...
in 1965 and studied
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
at
Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Epis ...
before taking up photography in 1969.
Cunningham acted as assistant to
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson (; 22 August 1908 – 3 August 2004) was a French humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography, and viewed photography as cap ...
in 1975 when the French photographer spent several weeks touring and photographing in
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
.
He lives on
Bleecker Street
Bleecker Street is an east–west street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is most famous today as a Greenwich Village nightclub district. The street connects a neighborhood today popular for music venues and comedy, but which was ...
in
NoHo
NoHo, short for North of Houston Street (as contrasted with SoHo), is a primarily residential neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is bounded by Mercer Street to the west and the Bowery to the east, ...
with his wife, Ara Fitzgerald.
Music photography
In his early career Cunningham specialized in photographing musicians and theatrical performances and concerts.
Cunningham was the house photographer at the New York cabaret
The Bottom Line.
In 1973, as his first professional assignment, he shot
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American singer and songwriter. He has released 21 studio albums, most of which feature his backing band, the E Street Band. Originally from the Jersey Shore, he is an originat ...
's first publicity photographs for
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...
.
In 1982 Cunningham shot the first publicity photographs of
Madonna
Madonna Louise Ciccone (; ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Widely dubbed the " Queen of Pop", Madonna has been noted for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, songwriting, a ...
for
Warner Brothers
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American Film studio, film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, Califo ...
. A number of images from the photo session were lost and were exhibited for the first time in 2016 after having been rediscovered.
Other work
Cunningham is a Zen practitioner and a student of
Bernie Glassman
Bernie Glassman (January 18, 1939 – November 4, 2018) was an American Zen Buddhist roshi and founder of the Zen Peacemakers (previously the Zen Community of New York), an organization established in 1980. In 1996, he co-founded the Zen Peace ...
of the
Zen Peacemaker Order
The Zen Peacemakers is a diverse network of socially engaged Buddhists, currently including the formal structures of the Zen Peacemakers International, the Zen Peacemaker Order and the Zen Peacemaker Circles, many affiliated individuals and gro ...
.
He participated in and photographed the first "interfaith meditation retreat" at the
Auschwitz concentration camp
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
led by Glassman in 1997.
Cunningham began visiting
Grand Manan Island
Grand Manan is a Canadian island in the Bay of Fundy. Grand Manan is also the name of an incorporated village, which includes the main island and all of its adjacent islands, except White Head Island. It is governed as a village and is part of t ...
in the
Bay of Fundy
The Bay of Fundy (french: Baie de Fundy) is a bay between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, with a small portion touching the U.S. state of Maine. It is an arm of the Gulf of Maine. Its extremely high tidal range is the hi ...
with his parents as a small child and returns to the island annually to photograph.
References
External links
Peter Cunningham's website''Fogseeker: Peter Cunningham on Grand Manan'', a film by Denise Petrizzo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cunningham, Peter
Living people
American Zen Buddhists
Year of birth missing (living people)
Place of birth missing (living people)
Wesleyan University alumni
Photographers from New York City
Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School alumni