Ansel Adams

(American, 1902–1984)

Ansel Adams was an iconic American photographer known for his awe-inspiring black-and-white photographs of the American West. Carefully composed and technically precise, the artist’s picturesque images of Yosemite National Park are some of the most iconic works in the history of the medium. “Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space,” he once mused. “I know of no sculpture, painting, or music that exceeds the compelling spiritual command of the soaring shape of granite cliff and dome, of patina of light on rock and forest, and of the thunder and whispering of the falling, flowing waters.” Born on February 20, 1902 in San Francisco, CA, the artist trained as a concert pianist before turning to photography in 1930. Along with Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham, Adams formed Group f/64 with the goal of elevating photography to a high art at a time when it was only considered a form of documentation. A committed environmentalist, he traveled throughout the country to capture the grandeur of natural sites. Adams died on April 22, 1984 in Monterey, CA at the age of 82. Today, the artist’s works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, among others.