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Cunningham, Imogen (b. April 12, 1883, Portland, Ore., U.S.—d. June 24, 1976, San Francisco, Calif.)

U.S. photographer. She began taking pictures in 1901; her earliest prints imitated contemporary academic painting. She opened a portrait stu¬ dio in Seattle, Wash., in 1910 and soon established a national reputa¬ tion as a portrait photographer.

Encouraged by Edward Weston, she exhibited her plant photographs in San Francisco, where she would work for the remainder of her career.

In 1932 she joined the West Coast photographers known as Group/.64.

Later in her career she taught at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Cunningham, Merce (b. April 16, 1919, Centralia, Wash., U.S.)

U.S. avant-garde dancer and chore¬ ographer. In 1939 he joined Martha Graham’s company, where he created roles in several of her works. As an independent choreographer in 1945- 52, he began his long collaboration with the composer John Cage. In 1952 Cunningham formed his own company, developing his interest in isolated movement and “choreogra¬ phy by chance.” His Suite by Chance (1952) was the first dance performed to an electronic score. Other works include The Seasons (1947), Sum- merspace (1958), and Locale (1980).

Cuno Vku-no\, Wilhelm (Carl Josef) (b. July 2, 1876, Suhl,

Ger.—d. Jan. 3, 1933, Aumiihle)

German politician and business leader. After serving in government positions from 1907, in 1918 he became general director of the Hamburg-American Line, the largest German shipping concern. He served as chancellor of the Weimar Republic (1922-23), enjoying the strong support of German business and industry but failing to readjust war reparations or halt inflation. During the Ruhr occupation he urged a national policy of passive resistance, which ulti¬ mately overtaxed the economy. Obliged to resign, he returned to Hamburg-American and again served as chairman (1926-33).

cupellation \,kyu-p3-'la-sh3n\ Separation of gold or silver from impu¬ rities by melting the impure metal in a cupel (a flat, porous dish made of a refractory material) and directing a blast of hot air on it in a special furnace. The impurities, including lead, copper, tin, and other unwanted metals, are oxidized and partly vaporized and partly absorbed into the pores of the cupel.

Two Callas, by Imogen Cunningham, c.

IMOGEN CUNNINGHAM

Merce Cunningham, 1970.

JACK MITCHELL

Cupid ► Curley I 495

Cupid Ancient Roman god of love in all its varieties, identified with the Greek Eros. Cupid was the son of Mercury and Venus. He was usually represented as a winged infant who carried a bow and quiver of arrows, which he shot at humans to inflict wounds that inspired love or passion.

He was also sometimes depicted as a beautiful youth. Though generally considered beneficent, he could be mischievous in matchmaking, often at his mother’s behest.

Curacao X.kur-o-'so, .kyur-o-'saiA Largest island (pop., 2000 est.:

143,387) of the Netherlands Antilles.

It is located in the Caribbean Sea north of the coast of Venezuela;

Willemstad is its chief town. It occu¬ pies 171 sq mi (444 sq km) and has the best natural harbour in the West Indies. First visited by Europeans in 1499, it was settled by the Spanish in 1527; Sephardic Jews from Portugal migrated there in the 1500s, originat¬ ing the oldest continuously inhabited Jewish community in the Western Hemisphere. The Dutch West India Co. gained control of the island in 1634. It was awarded to The Netherlands by the 1815 Treaty of Paris. Internal self-government was granted in 1954. Products include oranges, Curasao liqueur, and aloes. The chief industry is the refining of oil from Venezuela; tourism is of growing importance.

curare \kyu-'rar-e\ Organic compound, an alkaloid that occurs in vari¬ ous tropical American plants (mostly of the genus Strychnos) and causes paralysis. Crude preparations have long been used by native people as an arrow poison. It relaxes skeletal muscle by competing with acetylcholine at nerve endings. A purified form is used in anesthesiology to prevent any movement of patients during surgery. Small amounts bring profound relaxation, with prompt recovery and few complications.

curassow Vkyur-o-.soX Any of numerous tropical American bird spe¬ cies (family Cracidae); strictly defined, one of 7-12 species in which the male is glossy black and has a curled crest of feathers and a brightly coloured bill ornament. The smaller female is brownish and unorna¬ mented. Curassows have delicious flesh and are hunted as game. Large species (measuring up to nearly 40 in. 1100 cm] long) include the great curassow (Crax rubra), found from Mexico to Ecuador; the helmeted curassow {Pauxipauxi), of the Venezuelan and Colombian mountains; and the critically endangered razor-billed curassow (C. mitu ), of the Amazon.

curia Vkyur-e-sX In medieval Europe, a court, or a group of persons who attended a ruler at a given time for social, political, or judicial purposes. The ruler and curia made policy decisions (as on war, treaties, finances, church relations), and under a powerful ruler the curia often became active as a court of law. Indeed, curiae became so loaded down with judicial work that they were gradually forced to delegate it to special groups of judges. In England the Curia Regis (King’s Court) began at the time of the Norman Conquest (1066) and lasted to about the end of the 13th cen¬ tury. It was the germ from which the higher courts of law, the Privy Council, and the cabinet were to spring. See also Roman Curia.

Curia, Papal See Roman Curia

Curia, Roman See Roman Curia

Curie, Frederic Joliot- See Frederic Joliot-Curie

Curie \kyur-'e\, Marie orig. Maria Sktodowska (b. Nov. 7, 1867, Warsaw, Pol., Russian Empire—d. July 4, 1934, near Sallanches, France) Polish-born French physical chemist. She studied at the Sorbonne (from 1891). Seeking the presence of radioactivity —recently discovered by Henri Becquerel in uranium—in other matter, she found it in thorium. In 1895 she married fellow physicist Pierre Curie (1859-1906). Together they dis¬ covered the elements polonium (which Marie named after her native Poland) and radium, and they distinguished alpha, beta, and gamma radia¬ tion. For their work on radioactivity (a term she coined), the Curies shared the 1903 Nobel Prize for Physics with Becquerel. Marie thus became the

Cupid, classical statue; in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples

AUNARI—ART RESOURCE/EB INC.

first woman to receive a Nobel Prize.

After Pierre’s death, Marie was appointed to his professorship and became the first woman to teach at the Sorbonne. In 1911 she won a Nobel Prize for Chemistry for dis¬ covering polonium and isolating pure radium, becoming the first per¬ son to win two Nobel Prizes. She died of leukemia caused by her long exposure to radioactivity. In 1995 she became the first woman whose own achievements earned her the honour of having her ashes enshrined in the Pantheon in Paris.