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The National Parks
Adams met Harold Ickes, secretary of the interior, in 1936, while in Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress on behalf of the Sierra Club. Later, Adams’ first book of landscape photography, Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail (1938), impressed both Ickes and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As a result, Ickes hired Adams to document the national parks. Adams made a series of mural-size photographs of the national parks to hang in the new Interior Building, in Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, the mural project was cut short a few months later by America’s entry into World War II. Although the murals were never produced, Adams felt so strongly about the value of the project that he sought financial assistance on his own. Guggenheim Foundation grants in 1946 and 1948 allowed him to photograph national parks from Hawaii to Maine, and from Alaska to Texas. From this large group of negatives, Adams produced numerous fine art prints, a portfolio, and a book, My Camera in the National Parks.  Ansel Adams, American; From Hurricane Hill, Olympic National Park, Washington, 1948; gelatin silver print. The Lane Collection. ©2007 The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust.  This unusual self-portrait depicts Adams, light meter in hand, standing next to his large-format camera. He took the photograph while in Monument Valley to shoot a Colorama for display in New York’s Grand Central Station. Sponsored by Eastman Kodak, Coloramas were panoramic, backlit transparencies, almost eighteen feet high and sixty feet long. Ansel Adams, American; Self-Portrait, Monument Valley, Utah, 1958; gelatin silver print. The Lane Collection. ©2007 The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust. Left corner image: Ansel Adams, American; Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941; printed date:196575; gelatin silver print. The Lane Collection. ©2007 The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust. |