A Grand Vision: The David H. Arrington Collection of Ansel Adams Masterworks

A Grand Vision: The David H. Arrington Collection of Ansel Adams Masterworks

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 80. Helmet Rock, Near Lands End.

Ansel Adams

Helmet Rock, Near Lands End

Auction Closed

December 14, 10:16 PM GMT

Estimate

20,000 - 30,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Ansel Adams

1902 - 1984

Helmet Rock, Near Lands End


warm-toned gelatin silver print, mounted to white card, mounted again to charcoal paper, in the original Vickery, Atkins & Torrey, San Francisco, frame, circa 1918; accompanied by the original paper backing with framer's label and a certificate of provenance, signed by Michael and Jeanne Adams (3)

image: 5 3/4 by 7 3/4 in. (14.6 by 19.7 cm.)

frame: 9 1/4 by 11 3/4 in. (23.5 by 29.8 cm.)

Collection of Virginia Best Adams

By descent to Michael and Jeanne Adams, 1980s

Acquired from the above, 2007

Rebecca Senf, Making a Photographer: The Early Work of Ansel Adams (New Haven, 2020), fig 1.8
Salem, Peabody Essex Museum, Ansel Adams: At the Water’s Edge, June – October 2012

Greenwich, The Royal Museums Greenwich, Photography From the Mountains to the Sea, November 2012  – April 2013, and traveling thereafter to the Australian National

Greenwich, The Royal Museums Greenwich, Photography From the Mountains to the Sea, November 2012  – April 2013, and traveling thereafter to:

Sydney, Australian National Maritime Museum, July – December 2013

Santa Fe, The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Georgia O’Keeffe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities, May – September 2008; traveling thereafter to The Norton Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Vickery, Atkins & Torrey opened in San Francisco on Grant Avenue in 1888. After its first location was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake, the firm relocated to 550 Sutter Street. While the gallery primarily showed etchings and paintings, including Duchamp's Nu descendant un escalier n° 2, it also highlighted the work of local photographers Edward Weston, Arnold Genthe, and Ansel Adams.


Another early print of this image is in the Ansel Adams archive at the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona.