The Cincinnati Art Museum (CAM) has announced its newest exhibit, Discovering Ansel Adams, which will be available for viewing now through Jan. 19 in the museum’s Thomas R. Schiff Gallery.
The exhibition centers around the life and career of Ansel Adams, one of America’s most celebrated and widely known scenic photographers.
Adams dipped his toe into the world of photography when he was just 14 years old after receiving his first camera, and, as an employee of the Sierra Club’s lodge in Yosemite National Park, had the opportunity to get his first taste of landscape and scenic photography — the style that would later be his claim to fame.
After later making the decision to dedicate his career to photography full-time, Adams began to come into his photography style, enjoying more realistic and pure images while wanting to create a community of like-minded artists. In turn, Adams founded Group f/64 in 1923 alongside a group of West Coast photographers who also favored this style.
By the late 1930s, Adams was largely known in the photography community for his images of wilderness, as well as for his writing. He produced a series of articles that would later become a book entitled Making a Photograph, centered around the technical nature of photography that provided tips and tricks to address practical photography problems.
Throughout the remainder of his career, Adams worked tirelessly to have photography recognized as a fine art through presenting his work in a range of places, such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and went on to establish the first academic program to teach photography as a profession at the California School of Fine Arts. Shortly before his passing in 1984, Adams was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter due to his devotion to photography and nature.
The Cincinnati Art Museum and The Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona, collaborated to bring Adams’ 60-year career and collection to life.
At the forefront of curation for the exhibition is Nathaniel M. Stein, the curator of photography at CAM.
“I’m in charge of building the photography collection, making sure it’s properly taken care of and, most importantly, bringing it to the public through exhibitions and other kinds of educational events,” Stein told CityBeat. “I produce the exhibitions or work with colleagues at other institutions to produce exhibitions like, in this instance, when it’s primarily from another museum’s collection.”
To bring Discovering Ansel Adams to CAM, Stein has been in collaboration with Rebecca Senf, PhD, the chief curator at The Center for Creative Photography and an expert on all things Ansel Adams.
“This has been a part of her life’s work as a historian of photography,” Stein said. “She started working on him as a graduate student and has been working with his work all the way through her career.”
The Center for Creative Photography was co-founded by Adams and the president of the University of Arizona in the late ‘70s, and now holds nearly his entire archive — Adams’ prints, letters and personal items. If you ever wanted to learn something about Adams, this is the place to be.
The ultimate goal of Discovering Ansel Adams was not only to showcase Adams at the peak of what he could do, but to bring a collection to life that has texture by including things like his letters and personal items. In doing this, the exhibit gives viewers the opportunity to travel through Adams’ journey alongside him.
“It really allows us to ask different questions and find out different answers about him as an artist,” said Stein.
Believe it or not, Discovering Ansel Adams is an exhibition nearly 30 years in the making. Dr. Senf has been working on curating Adams’ work and studying his technique for nearly her entire career. But, in terms of the amount of time that the exhibition has been in the works for CAM, that’s closer to around two years.
“When we put an exhibition together, we think a lot about, ‘What do we need to tell this story?’ and, ‘What objects are going to enthrall and fascinate people?’” said Stein. “It’s similar to writing something, you know, you have a word count, so you have to think about the units that can be put in — it’s a similar process.”
The process of creating the exhibition is no easy feat. After choosing the focus for an exhibit, and beginning the process of piecing together the work, the biggest part lies in choosing what pieces to include within the gallery space.
“There’s a moment when the work first goes onto the wall, and it looks a million times better than it looked in storage or sitting on the floor, it’s incredibly rewarding,” said Stein.
The exhibition will feature approximately 80 virtuosic photographs, handwritten correspondence, snapshots, personal possessions and photographic working materials. Adams’ work featured in the collection ranges from small images from his early career to mural-sized prints of his most well-known pieces.
Discovering Ansel Adams is also a featured project in the 2024 FotoFocus Biennial: backstories. The FotoFocus Biennial is a month-long celebration of photography, film and lens-based art in Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky, Dayton and Columbus. This year’s theme, backstories, focuses on telling stories that are not as evident at first glance and provide narratives that have not yet been told or are being told from a new perspective.
“We can look at artists we already know we like and find out new things about them and appreciate them,” said Stein.
Discovering Ansel Adams is on view at the Cincinnati Art Museum through Jan. 19. More info: cincinnatiartmuseum.org.
This story is featured in CityBeat's Oct. 2 print edition.
