And finally, somehow, I must thank Ansel himself, though words cannot come close. I do know the debt I owe him as my teacher and my friend. He will never leave me, and I can never leave him.
Mary Street Alinder
July 2014
Photo Credits
The author and publisher deeply appreciate the permission given by the following individuals and institutions to reproduce the following photographs:
© 1984 Jim Alinder: Ansel Adams, February 1984; © 1982 Jim Alinder, Ansel and His Half Dome 80th Birthday Cake, 1982; © 1981 Jim Alinder, Ansel with Two Moonrises, in the Gallery of His Home, Carmel Highlands, California, 1981; © 1981 Jim Alinder, Ansel in his Darkroom, Carmel Highlands, California, 1981; © 1984 Jim Alinder, Ansel Printing The Tetons and the Snake River in His Darkroom, Carmel Highlands, 1984; © Jim Alinder, Since 1902 in 1982; © 1982, Virginia’s 78th Birthday Party, Adams’ Home, Carmel Highlands (from left: Michael, Virginia, Anne, and Ansel), 1982.
Collection of the Beinecke Library, Yale University: Photographer Unknown, Ansel Adams Exhibition at An American Place, 1936.
Courtesy the Collection of Michael Burnley, Bookseller: Allen & Hay Photo Studio, Ralph Selby, Charles Hitchcock Adams, and Olive Bray, San Francisco, c. 1891.
The writer thanks the Colby Memorial Library, Sierra Club for use of its historical archives: Cedric Wright, Ansel Adams, c. 1940; Cedric Wright, Ansel Adams and Patsy English, 1936 Sierra Club Outing; Cedric Wright, Ansel Adams and Mule, Sierra Nevada, c. 1930; Cedric Wright, Ansel Cooking on his Car’s Tailgate, c. 1940s; Cedric Wright, Ansel Photographing from Car Platform, the Eastern Sierra Nevada, c. 1950; Cedric Wright, Ansel Sitting on and Wearing the “Straddlevarious,” c. 1936; and Cedric Wright, In the Sierra, c. 1932; and Photographer Unknown, Sierra Club Board of Directors Meeting, c. 1960s (from left: Ansel, Richard Leonard, David Brower, Ed Wayburn, and unknown woman).
© 2014: The Imogen Cunningham Trust: Imogen Cunningham, Alfred Stieglitz, Photographer, at His Desk, 1934; and Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston and Charis Wilson Weston at Pt. Lobos, 1945.
Courtesy The Carter Presidential Library: President Jimmy Carter Awarding Ansel Adams the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the White House, 1980.
Courtesy Mike Evans, Ansel Adams Meeting with President Ronald Reagan, Los Angeles, 1983.
Courtesy David Hume Kennerly: Ansel Adams, 1979. Cover of Time.
Courtesy of the Farquhar family: Francis P. Farquhar, Ansel Adams on the 1927 and 1932 Sierra Club Outings.
© The Pirkle Jones Foundation: Pirkle Jones, Nancy and Beaumont Newhall in Ansel’s garden, San Francisco, May 1947.
© 2014 the Dorothea Lange Collection, The Oakland Museum of California, The City of Oakland, gift of Paul S. Taylor: Paul S. Taylor, Portrait of Dorothea Lange in Texas on the Texas Plains, c. 1934.
© 2014 Ron Partridge: Ansel Adams Playing the Piano, at Home in Yosemite, c. 1940.
Courtesy of Tom Zito: Ansel and Mary in Yosemite, 1980.
Special thanks for their generous efforts on behalf of the reproductions for this book to Nikki Baldauf, Ellen Byrne, Leslie Calmes, Tammy Carter, Linda Eade, Peter Farquhar, Denise Gosé, Drew Johnson, Rachel Mannheimer, Dianne Nilsen, Ron, Elizabeth, and Meg Partridge, Patti Ratchford, Amy Rule, David Scheinbaum, and Jonathan Spaulding.
A Note on the Author
Mary Street Alinder loves photography. She began her photographic education in 1965 when she met and married her husband Jim, a photographer, in Somalia. She was lucky enough to serve as the chief assistant to Ansel Adams from 1979 until his death in 1984. She had photographed sporadically but gave it up when she realized she could never approach Ansel’s level, or Jim’s. Ansel proved to be her mentor of consequence—a generous and patient teacher. She completed the 1985 bestseller Ansel Adams: An Autobiography, followed by Ansel Adams: Letters and Images as coeditor in 1988. Alinder’s most recent book, Group f.64, is now available.
Mary has lectured on Ansel ever since he asked her to speak for him during the last two years of his life. Among numerous other places, she has appeared at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the M. H. de Young Museum, San Francisco; the People’s Cultural Palace, Shanghai; the Arles Photography Festival, France; and the Barbican Art Centre, London. She has also curated exhibitions worldwide.
She lives in northern California where she makes great pizzas for her friends and is the Mother of Sorrel in her community garden.
By the Same Author
Group f.64
Ansel Adams: An Autobiography (as coauthor)
Ansel Adams: Letters and Images (as coeditor)
ALSO BY MARY STREET ALINDER
Group f.64
Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, and the Community of Artists Who Revolutionized American Photography
Group f.64 is perhaps the most famous movement in the history of photography, counting among its members Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange, Willard Van Dyke, and Edward Weston. Revolutionary in its day, Group f.64 was one of the first modern art movements equally defined by women. From the San Francisco Bay Area, its influence extended internationally, contributing significantly to the recognition of photography as a fine art.
The group—first identified as such in a 1932 exhibition—was comprised of strongly individualist artists, brought together by a common philosophy and held together in a tangle of dynamic relationships. Featuring nearly one hundred photographs by and of its members, Group f.64 details a transformative period in art with narrative flair.
Available wherever books are sold.
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-62040-555-0
Also available as an e-book.
eISBN: 978-1-62040-867-4
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Copyright © 2014 by Mary Street Alinder
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eISBN 978-1-62040-801-8
First U.S. edition 2014
This electronic edition published in October 2014
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Ansel Adams Page 56