Ansel Adams: A Southwest Legacy

JUNE 6, 2016 - DECEMBER 4, 2016
ANSEL ADAMS: A Southwest Legacy

Ansel Adams: A Southwest Legacy highlights 21 photographs Ansel Adams made in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. The exhibition includes dramatic vistas of Big Bend National Park, intimate close-ups of nature in New Mexico, and a variety of portraits of Georgia O’Keeffe and others. Also included are several well-known masterpieces such as Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico and White House Ruin, Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Arizona.

Ansel Adams made these prints as part of a “legacy” collection for The Friends of Photography, one of several organizations Adams helped create to promote photography as a fine art. They are now in the collection of Lynn and Tom Meredith of Austin, who have generously helped make this exhibition possible.

Adams is famous for creating unforgettable photographs of unspoiled nature. He is also lauded for his mastery of black-and-white printing techniques. Adams was, however, most interested in the expressive power of a photograph. “You don’t make a photograph just with a camera,” he said, “you bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”