Discovering Ansel Adams features over 100 photographs that share Adams’s most celebrated works while revealing aspects of his development that are frequently overlooked. Together with original archival materials from the Center of Creative Photography’s Ansel Adams Archive, these photographs demonstrate how Adams transformed from a fourteen-year-old tourist with a camera into a renowned photographer between 1916 and the 1940s. Along the way, photographic prints from his early visits to the American Southwest, his mountaineering experiences as a young man, and his quest to photograph America’s national parks will enchant visitors.
Photographs in the exhibition span Adams’s entire career, from small, one-of-a-kind prints from his teenage years to a set of mural-sized prints showcasing some of his most famous views. Rare, original archival documents only available from the Center of Creative Photography, including correspondence, unpublished manuscripts, snapshots, personal possessions, book drafts, and photographic working materials, illuminate Adams’s rich life and fascinating experiences. Examples of publications he created explore the ways he made his photographs available to broad audiences throughout his lifetime. Portraits of Adams by other noted photographers, paired with letters and manuscripts in his own words, provide an intimate look at the person behind the camera. Focused sections on his skills as a mountaineer, his experience with the Sierra Club in its formative years, his investment in the art of bookmaking, and commercial endeavors in his beloved Yosemite National Park allow visitors to see Adams as they have never seen him before.
Discovering Ansel Adams is organized by the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, with the support of The Museum Box, and is curated by Ansel Adams scholar and Center for Creative Photography Chief Curator Dr. Rebecca Senf.
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Image Credit: Edward Weston, Ansel Adams (After He Got a Contax Camera), 1936, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona: Gift of Ansel and Virginia Adams, 76.20.49, © Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents
