Ansel Adams

The Estate of the photographer to The Friends of Photography, Carmel, 1984

Acquired from the above, 2002

Ansel Adams, Camera and Lens: The Creative Approach (New York, 1970), fig. 40

Ansel Adams and Nancy Newhall, The Tetons and the Yellowstone (Redwood City, 1970), frontispiece

Ansel Adams, The Camera (Boston, 1980), fig. 6-1

Ansel Adams, Ansel Adams: An Autobiography (Boston, 1985), p. 278

James Alinder and John Szarkowski, Ansel Adams: Classic Images (Boston, 1985), pl. 36

Andrea Gray Stillman, ed., Ansel Adams: The American Wilderness (Boston, 1990), pl. 82

Andrea Gray Stillman and William A. Turnage, eds., Ansel Adams: Our National Parks (Boston, 1992), p. 2

Mary Street Alinder, Ansel Adams: A Biography (New York, 1996), illustration facing p. 298

John Szarkowski, Ansel Adams at 100 (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2001), pl. 79

Karen Haas and Rebecca Senf, Ansel Adams in the Lane Collection (Boston, 2005), pl. 51

Andrea Gray Stillman, ed., Ansel Adams: 400 Photographs (Boston, 2007), cover and p. 215

Barbara Buhler Lynes, Sandra S. Phillips, and Richard B. Woodward, Georgia O’Keeffe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities (Boston, 2008), p. 114

Shanghai, Shanghai Gallery, People’s Exhibition Hall, Ansel Adams: Photographer, February 1983, and traveling thereafter to: Beijing, National Museum of Art, March 1983; Tokyo, Odakyu Store Art Gallery, June 1983; Hong Kong Arts Centre, July – August 1983; San Diego, Museum of Photographic Arts, June – August 1984; Haifa, Museum of Modern Art, May – August 1987

San Francisco, Ansel Adams Center, Ansel Adams and the National Parks, June – September 1992

San Francisco, Ansel Adams Center, This Is the American Earth, September – November 1992; and traveling thereafter to: Washington, D. C., American Museum of Natural History, December 1992 – January 1993; Tokyo, Japan, Laforet Museum Espace, February 1993; Nagoya, Japan, Parco Co., Ltd, March 1993; Hiroshima, Japan, Izumi Wizwonderland, March – April 1993; Osaka, Japan, Nankai Electric Railway Co., Ltd., April – May 1993; Yosemite National Park, Yosemite Museum, May – September 1993

San Jose, The Tech Museum of Innovation, Art and Technology, February – June 1995

San Francisco, Ansel Adams Center, Ansel Adams, a Legacy: Masterworks from the Friends of Photography Collection, March – June, 1997, and traveling thereafter to: Chattanooga, Tennessee, Hunter Museum of Art, July – September 1997; Louisville, Kentucky, J. B. Speed Museum, September – November 1998; Fort Wayne, Indiana, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, December 1998 – February 1999; Japan, Nihombashi, Mitsukoshi Department Store Gallery, March, 1999; Japan, Ehime Prefecture Museum, June – July 1999; Japan, Toyama Prefecture, Tonami City Museum, July – August 1999; Japan, Hokkaido, Kushiro Art Museum, September – October 1999; Japan, Kawasaki City Museum, October – December 1999; Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Art Museum, May – August 2000

Billings, Montana, Yellowstone Art Museum, Ansel Adams: a Legacy, October 2002 – January 2003 and traveling thereafter to: University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Center, Ansel Adams: a Legacy, August 2005 – January 2006; Loretta and Ligonier, Pennsylvania, The Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, March– November 2006; Cleveland, Ohio, Cleveland Institute of Art, May – August 2007; Tucson Museum of Art, October 2009 – February 2010; Cartersville, Georgia, Booth Western Art Museum, September 2010 – March 2011; Missoula, Montana, Missoula Art Museum, October 2011 – April 2012; Helena, Montana, The Holter Museum of Art, January – April 2013; Charlottesville, Virginia, University of Virginia, The Fralin Museum of Art, June – October 2013

Ansel Adams made this photograph while traveling cross-country while on assignment for the United States Department of the Interior to document national parks and other notable landscapes for an ambitious mural project.  Accompanied by his son, Michael (then eight years old) and friend Cedric Wright, Adams photographed hundreds of landscapes across the West at the Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, Canyon de Chelly, Taos Pueblo, and many more.  

‘I quickly became enamored of the geysers of Yellowstone.  It is difficult to conceive of any substance in nature more impressively brilliant than the spurting plumes of white waters in sunlight against a deep blue sky.  I was delighted photographically with the geysers at dawn, as well as at sunset.’ 

Ansel Adams, Ansel Adams: An Autobiography (Boston, 1985), p. 277