Ansel Adams: A Master Technician
Hindman is pleased to present the work of Ansel Adams this November 28 in our Photographs auction. Join Director, Senior Specialist, Photographs Laura Paterson as she details the grandeur and skill of his work.
Ansel Adams' meticulously crafted images of the formidable expanse and variety of the Western American landscape have entranced a huge and disparate international audience for well over a century. The sheer expansive beauty of his work accounts for its perennial popularity, even in these volatile times.
From his towering mountain ranges to nuanced plant studies, Adams’s black and white photographs, particularly iconic works taken in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, such as Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite, 1937; Moonrise Hernandez, New Mexico, The Tetons and Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, 1942; Winter Sunrise from Lone Pine, Sierra Nevada, California, 1944; Mount McKinley from Wonder Lake, Denali National Park, Alaska, 1947; and Maroon Bells, near Aspen, Colorado, 1951, all being offered in Hindman’s forthcoming photography sale on November 28, have provided generations the chance to judge the importance and value of nature through his eyes.
Lot 18 | Ansel Adams (1902-1984) | Moonrise, Hernandez, NM, 1941 | Estimate: $35,000 - $45,000
A master technician and perfectionist, who switched from music to photography as a young man, Adams’s creative process was demanding – involving carrying cumbersome equipment into often hostile terrain, and enduring long waits for the best light when he got there. All these challenges had to be overcome before he could undertake the elaborate, often extraordinary, technical feats he accomplished in his darkroom.
Adams credited his impact not to his technique, but to his eye, however. He wrote:
“The whole world is, to me, very much ‘alive,’ all the little growing things, even the rocks, I can’t look at a swell bit of grass and earth, for instance, without feeling the essential life – the things going on – within them. The same goes for a mountain, or a bit of the ocean, or a magnificent piece of old wood.”
Lot 15 | Ansel Adams (1902-1984) | The Teton Range and Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, 1942 | Estimate: $30,000 - $50,000
A staunch environmentalist, Ansel Adams’s preoccupations were Yosemite, the national park system, and the preservation of wilderness. He focused on what he termed the spiritual-emotional aspects of parks and wilderness and relentlessly resisted the Park Service’s exploitation of the natural world which he believed led to its overdevelopment. Although he claimed that his photographs were not specifically created to further the cause of environmental conservationism, the sheer glory of his depictions of the natural world undoubtedly led to the protection of vast swathes of hitherto endangered territories.
It is undeniable Adams’s primary subject matter, the extraordinary natural beauty of the American West, captured simply using a camera, still resonates today. Collectors of American art and photography continue to prize his photographs above all others, a unique appeal that was summarized by photo historian, friend, and fellow photographer John Szarkowski:
“The love that Americans poured out for the work and person of Ansel Adams during his old age, and that they have continued to express with undiminished enthusiasm since his death, is an extraordinary phenomenon, perhaps even unparalleled in our country’s response to a visual artist.”