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

Ansel Adams

Datura Flower, Canyon de Chelly National Monument

Auction Closed

December 14, 10:16 PM GMT

Estimate

10,000 - 15,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Ansel Adams

1902 - 1984

Datura Flower, Canyon de Chelly National Monument

gelatin silver print, mounted, initialed in pencil on the mount, the photographer's San Francisco studio stamp (BMFA 4), numbered '3-NPS-116' in ink, the 'Photograph by Ansel Adams' stamp, signed and titled 'Datura' by Virginia Best Adams in pencil, and a Michael and Jeanne Adams collection stamp on the reverse, framed, 1947, probably printed between 1950 and 1962; accompanied by a certificate of provenance, signed by Michael and Jeanne Adams (2)

image: 6 3/8 by 9 in. (16.2 by 22.9 cm.)

frame: 18 3/8 by 20 7/8 in. (46.7 by 53 cm.)

Collection of Virginia Best Adams

By descent to Michael and Jeanne Adams, 1980s

Acquired from the above, 2007

Ansel Adams and Lawrence Clark Powell, Photographs of the Southwest (Boston, 1976), pl. 109

Karen E. Quinn and Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., Ansel Adams: The Early Years (Boston, 1991), pl. 25

Andrea Gray Stillman, ed., Ansel Adams: The Grand Canyon and the Southwest (Boston, 2000), p. 86

The present image of the beautiful but deadly Datura, also known as jimsonweed, is a closely cropped version of a composition showing the large plant growing within a small niche with cacti in the lower third and a rockface across the top. Prints of both versions are in the Ansel Adams archive at the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona.