A: Is for the Art of Ansel Adams

Continuing from Valentino, Ansel Adams has captured majestic landscapes like The Tetons - Snake River and Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico. They are among the “iconic images that we will always connect with Adams and thanks to him they will never be lost. Adams begun to visit the Sierra Nevada when he was 14. He was deeply affected by the grandeur of the landscape, and the conservation and depiction of the Sierra's became a lifelong passion. He had begun to explore the landscape with a camera in 1910. One hundred twenty-five of those images are currently on display at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. They range from Wind, Juniper Tree taken in Yosemite National Park in 1919 when he was 17 years old to his death. As a child I grew to love Yosemite before I ever visited. Yosemite was the touchstone in his life. It’s where he realized that he was good enough and decided to give up his dream of being a concert pianist, which he had imagined he would do as an adult, and become a fulltime photographer. He really photographed moments in time: weather, light, clouds, the drama of the sky. Adams, photographed subjects rarely seen in exhibitions, friends like artist Georgia O’Keefe. In 1929 and 1930 he did a series of pictures of American Indian dancers in New Mexico. He researched everything, and knew all the particulars and why they did it. He was insatiable.” Visitors to the exhibition of photographs from the Lane Collection will see that and the many sides of Ansel Adams that are rarely shown in exhibits of his work. Adams's method was to divide the basic exposure into two parts, just burning in the foreground reflection area starting from the top of the ice, then burning the cliffs starting from the bottom of the ice ... Thus the ice receives about twice the exposure given to the cliffs and the reflection area.

Throughout his working life he published books of his photographs as well as technical guides. He also taught photography and was instrumental in setting up the Centre for Creative Photography in Arizona. In 1975 he announced that he would no longer take orders for his photographs from commercial galleries and would only produce prints for non-profit making organisations, such as museums. He died in 1984. The following year a peak in Yosemite National Park was named Mount Ansel Adams. Hopefully this exhibit will find it's way to NY. Until then these are the F.A.C.T.S