By Karen Bloom
His black-and-white landscapes have been widely reproduced in various formats.
The public is familiar with many of the images shot by America¹s most popular 20th century photographer from the mass marketing of his photographs of Yosemite Park and other famous landscape scenes into calendars, posters and the like. But there¹s much more to Adams¹ legacy than what we find on the shelves of the local book store.
Adams¹ vision is on display in a new show recently opened at the Hesckscher Museum of Art, ³Ansel Adams and Edwin Land: Art, Science, and Invention: Photographs from the Polaroid Collection.² It¹s worth a visit to examine the scope of Adams images and re-acquaint ourselves with what we think we know about the beloved photographer.
According to exhibit curators Linda Benedict-Jones and Barbara Hitchcock, ³One of Adams¹ greatest gifts and indeed his gift to photography was his singular sensitivity to the power of light. This quality allowed the artist to reveal both the minute details and the grandiose beauty of our natural environment.²
The Heckscher¹s exhibit features approximately 80 photos including vintage enlargements of Adams¹ famed Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1940, and Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, 1960. Visitors additionally will see one-of-a-kind Polaroid black-and-white prints, correspondence, and a rare example of the artist¹s early commercial work.
³The Heckscher Museum¹s important permanent collection is particularly strong in modern American art,² said Dr. Kenneth Wayne, chief curator. ³The Museum is currently developing its photography holdings and is planning to present more photography exhibitions. With these elements in mind, this exhibition of works by one of America¹s greatest photographers has special appeal.²
The show explores the artist¹s key involvement with the historical development of Polaroid film, invented by Edwin Land, founder of Polaroid Corporation, in 1940. In 1948, Adams became a consultant to Land, for whom he rigorously tested new films and products. In working with Land, Adams experimented with the technical and creative potential of this instant medium, and by so doing, helped to usher in a new era in photography that has changed and influenced the process of the medium.
In his autobiography published posthumously in 1985, Adams reflected on his 1968 photograph of El Capitan and on his collaboration with Land, writing:² Many of my most successful photographs from the 1950s onward have been made on Polaroid film. One look at the tonal quality of the print I have achieved should convince the uninitiated of the truly superior quality of Polaroid film.²
Adams was born in San Francisco and first became involved with photography at age 14 when his parents gave him a Kodak Box Brownie camera for a summer vacation in Yosemite National Park. He subsequently worked part-time in the photo-finishing business; and then, from 1920 to 1927, was custodian of the Sierra Club¹s headquarters in Yosemite. This position offered him the opportunity to photograph his majestic environs at length. There, Adams made his first true visualization in which he portrayed his subject not as it appeared in reality but (as he related in ³Ansel Adams: An Autobiography²) in how it felt to me and how it must appear in the finished print.² Interestingly, Adams did not set out to become a photographer, initiallyhe pursued his interest in the piano.
In addition to his own artistic contributions, Adams (as a kind of ambassador) played an integral role in the acceptance of photography as a fine art. In 1940, the artist helped found the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art.
Six years later, he started the Photography Department at the San Francisco Art Institute. Adams also influenced Land to collect prints from other photographers, such as Edward Weston, Margaret Bourke-White, Imogen Cunningham, and other giants in the field of creative photography. These images formed the core of what would later become the renowned Polaroid Collection.
Ansel Adams and Edwin Land
Through June 24. Heckscher Museum of Art, Rte. 25A and Prime Ave., Huntington. Admission: $5 adults, $3 seniors and students, $1 children ages 5-11. For more information, contact
(631) 351-3250 or www.heckscher.org.
