Exhibition Guide
Ansel Adams: Photographs 27 June – 31 August 2008
Ansel Adams: Photographs 27 June – 31 August 2008
Ansel Adams (1902-1984) is one of the most renowned and influential landscape photographers of the 20th century. Spanning a period of fifty years, from the 1920s to the 1970s, this timely exhibition includes Adams’ photographs of the magnificent landscapes for which he is most celebrated; from the soaring monoliths of Yosemite National Park to the lakes and mountains of Alaska. Hand-printed and selected by Adams from an archive of over 40,000 negatives during the last years of his life, this set of over seventy photographs are the images by which he wanted to be remembered. Adams’ photographic style, which fuses personal vision, technical precision and environmental advocacy, has had an unparalleled influence, not only on the development of photography as an art form, but also on how we see and think about the landscape today. Adams originally trained as a musician and was inspired to take up photography after a boyhood trip to Yosemite National Park, California, in 1916. For Adams, the purpose of his art was to reveal beauty to others and to inspire. Photography became his main preoccupation in 1927 and throughout his career, he maintained a strong spiritual connection to Yosemite. Adams also played a seminal role in the development of the environmental movement in the United States. At the age of 17, he joined the Sierra Club, a group dedicated to preserving the natural world’s wonders and resources, of which he became a lifelong member. His black and white photographs of the American West became the foremost record of what many of the National Parks were like before the advent of mass tourism. The earliest photograph in the exhibition, Lodgepole Pines, Lyell Fork of the Merced River, Yosemite National Park, California, 1921, shows how Adams experimented with soft-focus, etching and other techniques used by photographers at that time. Popular taste prescribed that a photograph should
look like a charcoal drawing in order to be considered as ‘art’. Ansel mastered the fashionable techniques, but long abandoned them for a more direct photographic style that had the clarity of the mountains themselves. In the spring of 1929, Adams made a visit to Taos, New Mexico. Here he met and became friends with photographer Alfred Stieglitz, the founder of the 291 Gallery in New York and was introduced to artists from his circle, including Stieglitz’s wife Georgia O’Keeffe, and the photographer Paul Strand. These early photographs from New Mexico mark Adams’ gradual move towards a more realist approach, relying on sharp focus, long focal depth, and darkroom craftsmanship; techniques which he was to refine throughout his career. At this time, Adams’ subject matter also expanded to include still life and close-up photographs. In the 1930s, Adams started to push technical boundaries in photography. He co-founded Group f/64 with Edward Weston, Willard Van Dyke and Imogen Cunningham. He pioneered the Zone System, a technique for translating perceived light into specific densities on negatives and paper, giving photographers better control over finished photographs. Adams’ photographic style attained full development in the 1940s as he looked to capture, in all their variety, elements of nature: from sun, sky, snow, rain and wind to stone, earth, fauna and flora. In Orchard, Portola Valley, California, 1940, the repetitive rhythm of trees create a visual symphony of light and dark. Surf Sequence is a series of prints that were made to be seen as a group, with quiet musical and poetic resonances. In the later photographs Aspens, Northern New Mexico, 1958 and Redwoods, Bull Creek Flat, Northern California, 1960, Adams creates two different but powerful images, exploiting the possibilities of depth of field and contrast. In Aspens, the vertical marks of the trees appear almost human in their physical presence. In Redwoods, the trees are akin to monumental architecture receding into the picture plane. Nature again is revealed and revered. Celebrated for his dedication to the technical precision of his work, Adams was an innovative experimentalist at heart, establishing many, now standard, photographic practices. He constantly looked to exploit the expressive potential of the photographic image in ways that could be appreciated by many. Though known principally for his photographs, he is equally important as an educator and champion for the institutional recognition of photography as a fine art. Ansel Adams: Photographs is organised by Modern Art Oxford. All works are from the collection of Anne Adams Helms.
Publication The publication Ansel Adams: Classic Images includes all of the photographs featured in the exhibition and can be purchased from the gallery shop, priced ÂŁ40.00. Further merchandise and publications are also available.
Further information For further information about the exhibition and Ansel Adams, visit the Art Library located on the Mezzanine Level.
Event In Conversation: Ansel Adams: Photography and the Spirit of the Landscape Saturday 19 July, 2pm Join Dr Anne Hammond, Research Fellow in Photography, Centre for Fine Print Research, University of the West of England, as she discusses the Ansel Adams exhibition. Please reserve your free place in advance by calling 01922 654400.