ANSEL ADAMS: Sharply Focused Highlights Hutchins Galleries

LAWRENCEVILLE’S HUTCHINS GALLERIES PLAYED

host to more than 70 original, signed Ansel Adams prints in May and June. Ansel Adams: Sharply Focused was generously lent to the Gallery by Glenn H. Hutchins ’73 to highlight his class’s 50th reunion in June. The exhibit’s “Museum Set” includes many classic and iconic images by the famed photographer, writer, teacher, advocate and environmentalist.

Curated by Adams in the last years of his life, the works include a medley of expansive landscapes, candid portraits, environmental still lifes, and iconic architectural images that demonstrate his ability to capture photographic sharpness, texture, and gradients of light in the American West. The exhibition features a self-portrait and one of Adams’ earliest photographs from San Francisco, created in 1915, when he was just 13 years old.

“Ansel was trained as a concert pianist,” Hutchins said. “He was famous for saying, ‘The negative is the score; the print is the performance,’ and he printed all these photos personally.”

Hutchins said he began collecting Adams’ photography for several reasons, noting his appreciation of the impact photography had on the art world when it originated in the late 1800s. He’s also interested in the medium as it stands at the intersection of art and technology and offers an ability to own a masterpiece.

“Finally, he is America’s greatest — he is the greatest photographer,” Hutchins said.

Hutchins returned to campus to celebrate his 50th reunion during Alumni Weekend and said he expected to think about his parents when he visited the eponymous Galleries.

“The Hutchins Galleries are named after my parents; it was my mother who would take me to museums all around the world,” he explained. “My father spent his life fighting hunger and poverty –concepts that are explored through [Lawrenceville’s] Hutchins Institute for Social Justice.”

Ansel Adams: Sharply Focused was coordinated by Melina Guarino, curator and gallery director of Hutchins Galleries, Richard Gadd of Weston Gallery in California, and Sarah Mezzino, curator of decorative art and design in the Stephan Archives. n

By LISA M. GILLARD H’17