Jane Foster, the floating model in the main image for this exhibit, was born in 1912 and died in 1979. The photo attached to this choronology entry is of Foster in 1940 and was taken by Cunningham.
Foster was a painter, socialite, and maybe even a spy for both the limeys and the reds? Briefly in 1938, she joined the Communist Party in the United States, and was supposedly recruited by the USSR to act as a spy around the same time. This event would have been slightly before her 1939 work with Imogen Cunningham. She went on to work for the British OSS from 1943 to 1946 and was later indicted in 1957 with her twice-married (to her) second husband, George Zlatovski.
Although they were indicted in 1957, they were living abroad in France. They denied the allegations, and were never extradited to the United States to face charges for their purported espionage on behalf of those damn dirty Reds. In the years that followed, it was never made clear whether they were guilty or not, but keep in mind that partisan hack and complete dirtbag, Joseph McCarthy spent much of the postwar era scaring people about people who were commies. A fun fact about Jane Foster is there's a connection with her to the famous American chef, Julia Child, and her husband, Paul Child. Julia worked for the OSS during World War II, and was friends with Jane Foster.
I mean, did they really do anything that bad even if they were spies? This was what Time magazine alleged in 1957:
"George (code name: "Rector") was not so active as his wife, mostly gathered information on refugees. As a team, they collected information on the "sexual and drinking habits" of U.S. personnel stationed in Austria so that the Russians could use it to blackmail Americans."
Sounds to me like they just liked to party.
Image Source:
Cunningham, Imogen. Jane Foster, Painter. 1940. https://www.imogencunningham.com/privateviews/dfb52b76fc915bf9723d29/3886-imogen-cunningham-jane-foster-painter-1940/ Links to an external site. Accessed 22 Apr. 2023.