• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • Archives
  • Subscribe
  • Advertise
  • Contact

Carmel Magazine

The Lifestyle Magazine of the Central Coast

  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Food & Wine
  • Music
  • Golf
  • Cars
  • Subscribe to Carmel Magazine!

Ansel Adams

August 1, 2010 by Catrina Coyle

In the 1930s and ’40s, when photography pioneer Ansel Adams was at the height of his creative powers, his magnificent images of California landscapes drew attention both to the art of photography and the importance of nature conservation.

Adams lived on the Monterey Peninsula from 1962 to 1984, and captured black and white images of California’s most beautiful places, including Yosemite and the Big Sur coast. Through October, the Monterey Museum of Art (MMA) La Mirada presents a rare chance to see 72 of Adams’ most iconic photographs, hand-chosen by the artist before his death in 1984. His daughter, Anne Adams Helms, has offered this “Portrait of America” exhibit to MMA to “experience the essence of some of the greatest natural environments ever captured by a true innovator,” says Museum Executive Director E. Michael Whittington. The Monterey museum is the only West Coast gallery to display this special “Museum Set.”

MMA curator Marcelle Polednik explained, “We have a good relationship with his [Ansel Adams’] family, and we wanted to commemorate Ansel’s great art. We saw that the museum set was on a worldwide tour, and we haven’t had an exhibit dedicated to Ansel Adams in a long time, so we saw this as a perfect opportunity.”

Ansel Easton Adams was born near San Francisco in 1902 and experienced the San Francisco Earthquake as a child—in fact, he broke his nose after one of the aftershocks knocked him down! He grew up on the coast near the Golden Gate Bridge and from his description in his autobiography, the beach and ocean scenery impressed him at an early age. He also writes of his boredom in school and his great desire to be outside, playing in the fog and sand. In his early teen years, Adams began seriously studying classical music and became an accomplished pianist.

Were it not for his Aunt Mary giving him a book called “In the Heart of the Sierras,” Adams might have photographed a different part of California and not given Yosemite the widespread recognition it deserved. But in 1916, Adams insisted the family take its vacation to Yosemite, and his life was changed at the sight of the national park’s grandeur. On this trip, he also received his first camera. The environmental photographer was born!

The beautiful mountains and forest also cured his many childhood illnesses. In 1919, he joined John Muir’s Sierra Club and began covering Yosemite in extended hikes. This new love of travel inspired more involvement with the Sierra Club and the National Park Service in the 1930s, to preserve natural beauty statewide. After some protest from painters and sculptors at the California School of Fine Arts who felt this new photography was “not an art,” he started a Department of Photography at the school in San Francisco in 1946. With increasing acclaim as an artist and teacher, Adams started photography workshops in Yosemite Park in 1955, which he kept until 1982, when he moved these workshops to the Carmel area.

Meanwhile, in the early 1960s, Adams felt the need to move out of San Francisco, and chose a property in the Carmel Highlands, with impressive views of the coast and Point Lobos, a base Adams would live and work from until his death in 1984. During this period, Adams founded an art group called The Friends of Photography with local artists Brett Weston, Wynn Bullock, Jim Alinder and others. This group and its students (including John Sexton and Cole Weston) put Carmel on the national map for photographic arts, although Adams continued to travel from his new Carmel home to the Sierras, New Mexico and other beautiful places to shoot and refine his photography.

In the mid 1970s, the Center for Creative Photography was born from the earlier Friends group, where Adams archived many of his prints and negatives. He was very concerned about the future use of his images, and began to limit the prints he made, primarily because of time constraints after their popularity. Major museums still requested his prints, and from these needs he began to create “museum sets” such as the one on display at MMA, for audiences to share. “Works of art, literature or music have little value or human benefit if held available only to the few,” he wrote in his autobiography. “Comprehending the natural world is, in itself, an act of creation and should be universally shared.”

The crisp black and white images,with unique compositions, are still in high demand. In 1981, a print of “Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico” set a record price of $71,500. In 2006, the print sold for $609,600. Just a few months ago, a new record was set, also for an Adams’ print: “Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park” sold for $722,500 (this image can be seen in MMA’s current exhibit).

America’s most famous photographer, Ansel Adams, once wrote in a book introduction, “I find it impossible to ‘verbalize’ on the expressive content of the photograph—mine or anyone else’s. If the image cannot stand on its own, so to speak, no patina of words will enhance it.” Visit the Monterey Museum of Art La Mirada before October to experience his images firsthand.

For more information on Ansel Adams’ “Portrait of America,” call the Monterey Museum of Art, 831/372-5477. 720 Via Mirada, Monterey. The photography exhibit is on display through Oct. 3.

Filed Under: Summer/Fall 2010 Tagged With: Lifestyle

Primary Sidebar

CURRENT & PAST EDITIONS HERE

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

GUIDETOCARMEL

READ THE GUIDE HERE

Tags

Cars Food & Wine Golf Lifestyle Music Travel

ForAdvertisers

  • ► Publisher’s Note
  • ► Mission Statement
  • ► Ad Rates
  • ► Ad Specs
  • ► Editorial Calendar
  • ► Advertise in Carmel Magazine
  • ► Media Contact
  • ► Full Media Kit

Secondary Sidebar

Archives

  • December 2022
  • September 2022
  • June 2022
  • March 2022
  • December 2021
  • September 2021
  • June 2021
  • March 2021
  • December 2020
  • August 2020
  • June 2020
  • February 2020
  • November 2019
  • August 2019
  • May 2019
  • February 2019
  • November 2018
  • August 2018
  • May 2018
  • February 2018
  • November 2017
  • August 2017
  • May 2017
  • February 2017
  • November 2016
  • August 2016
  • May 2016
  • February 2016
  • November 2015
  • August 2015
  • May 2015
  • January 2015
  • November 2014
  • August 2014
  • May 2014
  • February 2014
  • November 2013
  • August 2013
  • May 2013
  • February 2013
  • November 2012
  • August 2012
  • May 2012
  • February 2012
  • November 2011
  • August 2011
  • May 2011
  • February 2011
  • November 2010
  • August 2010
  • May 2010
  • February 2010
  • November 2009
  • August 2009
  • May 2009
  • February 2009
  • November 2008
  • August 2008
  • February 2008
  • November 2007
  • August 2007
  • May 2007
  • February 2007
  • November 2006

Footer

Carmel Magazine is the quarterly lifestyle magazine for Carmel and the Monterey Peninsula, featuring the notable people and places, arts, food and wine, destinations, styles and events of Carmel and the Peninsula.

Address:
126 Clocktower Place, Suite 103
Carmel, CA 93923

Phone: (831) 625-9922
Fax: (831) 626-3613

Recent Posts

  • Cocktails for the Centuries
  • Inside Esalen
  • Journey to the Big Screen
  • Golfing in Paradise
  • A Cliffside Home Built for Generations

Search

Tags

Cars Food & Wine Golf Lifestyle Music Travel

Copyright © 2023 Carmel Magazine · Carmel, California · Designed by BEAR★PRESS