Ansel Adams photo exhibit opens April 8

Tue, March 20, 2001 |

VALPARAISO, Ind. - The artistry of one of America's best-known photographers will be featured in an exhibition opening April 8 in the Brauer Museum of Art at Valparaiso University.

"Ansel Adams, A Legacy: Masterworks from The Friends of Photography Collection" features more than 100 of Adams' most outstanding photographs. The exhibition will continue through June 10 in the museum in the Center for the Arts on campus. There is no admission charge.

In connection with the opening of this first comprehensive exhibition of Adams' work in Northwest Indiana, Andy Grundberg, a noted critic for The New York Times and former director of The Friends of Photography, will provide an opening lecture at 2 p.m. April 8 in the museum. Grundberg is curator for the exhibition and has written exhibition essay about Adams and his work.

Adams, who died in 1984, is generally recognized as the most popular American photographer of the 20th century. Noted for his black-and-white photographs of rugged mountain landscapes, Adams captured the unique beauty in a variety of other subjects. Along with his familiar pictures of Yosemite National Park, the exhibition includes views of San Francisco and the Bay Area, portraits, abstract-style close-ups and other subjects.

Although the pictures in the exhibition span more than 40 years of work, many of the prints were made in the last 10 years of Adams' life when he focused on technical mastery of the black-and-white printing process. The prints are especially representative of his high-contrast prints that emphasize the shadows and highlights.

Gregg Hertzlieb, acting director of the Brauer Museum, says the exhibition offers a rare opportunity for viewers to see the photographs popularized in commercial printing for date books and calendars.

He describes the Ansel Adams pictures as the most notable exhibition at the Brauer Museum since Valparaiso University had the United States premier of an exhibition from the National Museum of Art of Romania in 1997.

"Most people have seen Adams' exquisitely detailed black-and-white photographs only in reproduction," Hertzlieb said. "With this exhibition, viewers now are able to experience the fine detail and rich tones of the actual photographs. The technical expertise of these prints represents Adams' celebration of not only the American landscape, but also the craft of photography to which Adams devoted his life."

Adams, a native of San Francisco, worked for nearly 30 years as a commercial photographer and traveled widely throughout the Western United States where he took many of the photographs that were to define his work.

The quality of his work became so well known that he was asked to help establish the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and to aid in making photography a part of the curriculum of the San Francisco Art Institute. His photography later was featured in an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A series of workshop for area teachers, lectures and gallery talks also are scheduled at Valparaiso University during the Adams exhibition