Ansel Adams

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

Acquired from the above, 2002

Ansel Adams, Photographs of the Southwest (Boston, 1976), pl. 62

James Alinder and John Szarkowski, Ansel Adams: Classic Images, The Museum Set (Boston, 1985), pl. 59

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

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

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; San Marcos, Texas, The Wittliff Collections, Texas State University, June – December 2016

The Southwestern landscape, architecture, and light quality greatly appealed to Ansel Adams, who, at the age of 25, visited the American Southwest for the first time.  He would return many times thereafter, criss-crossing the southern states.  In a letter to patron Albert Bender in 1928, he wrote of his trip to Santa Fe:

‘Every day has been an experience of a new place or a new person. I am convinced this is the greatest place in the world to work. . . I have taken several portraits, bought great quantities of pottery, visited many of the marvelous Mexican towns (Cordova, Santa Cruz, Chimayo, and four Pueblos). . .’ 

Ansel Adams quoted in Nancy Newhall, Ansel Adams: The Eloquent Light, Photographs 1923-1963 (San Francisco: M. H. de Young Memorial Museum and Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1963), p. 54

Penitente Morada was a sacred meeting site for the Penitente Brotherhood, Catholics of Spanish descent dedicated to community service.  Built in the 1700s, it is located within the village of Abiquiú, the site of Georgia O’Keeffe’s residence and studio. Adams made several trips to visit O’Keeffe at her home beginning 1937 accompanied by arts patron David McAlpin.  While Adams often claimed to be bewildered by contemporary painting and professed that O'Keeffe's paintings were a mystery, it is impossible to ignore the structural similarities between Adams’ photograph of Penitente Morada and several of O’Keeffe’s paintings from the 1950s.