Ansel Adams

by Ansel Adams

  Afterwards, to Stieglitz I wrote:

  November 29, 1936

  … My work has become new and exciting to me as never before. The praise you give never nourishes conceit—it reveals too much of the future for that. And your criticism is never disintegrating. The entire experience evaluates much more than it defines, and the joy with which I will attack my problems from now on will be a joy that has nothing to do with conquest, superior accomplishment, fashionable fame and all the other transparent gew-gaws that ornament the garment of social intercourse. I can see only one thing to do—make the photography as clean, as decisive, and as honest as possible. It will find its own level.

  Rather than say Stieglitz influenced me in my work, I would say that he revealed me to myself. Paul Strand’s work showed me the potential of photography as an art form; Stieglitz gave me the confidence that I could express myself through that art form.

  Stieglitz sometimes brought ideas to people that they did not want to understand; he possessed the very rare quality of spiritual independence. He was an enigma, a crank, an artist, a genius, an editor, a publisher, a dealer in art, a tastemaker, an influence. He believed that the artist has a right to work with dignity, thinking and doing as he desires.

  I remember a brisk, cool spring day; leaves were appearing and the Manhattan towers stood sharply before huge, rolling clouds as seen through the windows of the Place. Stieglitz was positively gay in spirit. Marin watercolors were on the walls, and people had been coming and going most of the morning. After lunch (Stieglitz had his out of a bag, and I think I went to a French restaurant with friends), I returned and prepared to make some photographs of the Place with my 35mm Zeiss Contax. Stieglitz was appreciative of my doing this, and he walked toward me, wearing his black cape and smiling. I took advantage of the moment and made a few portraits. Stieglitz said to me, “If I were younger and had one of those little cameras, I would lock the Place up for half the time and go out on the streets to catch the life of the city.”

  As I finished photographing, a regal woman entered, decked with glamorous furs and jewels. She quickly glanced at the walls and then accosted Stieglitz. “Mr. Stieglitz, my daughter is studying art. She simply loves art and she adores John Marin. Can I borrow the new Marin book for a week or so for her?” This charming and inexpensive little book, a collection of letters in conversational essay form, was quite revealing of Marin’s personality.

  Stieglitz peered at her over his glasses for a moment and then said, “My dear woman, Marin’s book is for sale for two dollars and fifty cents. Please make out the check to the artist.”

  As he turned away she said, rather complainingly, “Mr. Stieglitz, she only wants it for a tiny bit of time; she will bring it back to you as soon as she has finished it.”

  Stieglitz turned to her and let forth a stern lecture on art and the responsibility to keep it alive. “The artist lives to create and contribute to the spirit; he is not interested in jewels except to possibly paint them; he must work for a living!”

  The woman, abashed, perplexed, perhaps frightened, backed to the door while Stieglitz slowly advanced, talking continuously. She opened the door and fled. Stieglitz turned to me and said, “THAT should give her something to think about when she takes off those damned furs!”

  Another time the telephone rang, Stieglitz picked it up, listened a few moments, and then barked, “Come here at two o’clock tomorrow!” He said to me, “Some man wants to show me his paintings; please come at that time, too.” I was concerned because I felt Stieglitz was in a black mood.

  At the appointed time the man arrived. He was uncertainly young and looked positively ill: white-faced, woebegone, and scared. Stieglitz said, rather brusquely, “How do you do. Let me see your work.” The ragged portfolio was opened and the man took out his watercolors and put them on the desk. Stieglitz looked at each one, not saying a word, as he had treated me when I first met him—only this man had a chair to sit on.

  After twenty-odd paintings had been viewed, Stieglitz turned to him and said, gently, “These are very fine.” I thought the man was going to faint.

  Stieglitz then said to him, “You look like you have not had much to eat lately.” The man agreed.

  Stieglitz continued, “I wish to purchase one of these. What do you charge?” The man simply shrugged.

  Stieglitz said, “How about one hundred and fifty dollars?” All the man could say was a whispered thank you.

  Stieglitz wrote the check and gave him a five-dollar bill, saying, “You go and get a good lunch. Come back later and we will talk about your work.” The man returned in a few hours, looking almost healthy. Stieglitz offered to hold his work for him (“I am sure I can sell some for you”). I never learned the painter’s name nor do I know what happened to him and his work.

  Stieglitz always showed great interest in new ideas and visions. He seemed grimly selective at times, but that was because of the very high expressive and craft standards he demanded of everyone, certainly including himself. He would often say, “It’s too bad I didn’t have your film when I was working thirty years ago!” He used a rather rickety camera with only two different focal length lenses. Like Edward Weston, he favored the doctrine “less is more” but he had the good sense to eat fairly balanced meals while Edward did not. Stieglitz made hundreds, rather than thousands, of prints and never showed those he felt were less than perfect.

  In many ways Stieglitz did not act like an art dealer. He never gave a consignment slip for any print or painting and he never took a regular commission from a sale. His dealings were secured by his word, and he did more for his group of artists than any conventional dealer could have done, establishing unbelievable price levels. In a sense he was a dictator and his decisions were final as to price and to whom he would sell. He was criticized because he charged rich people what he thought they could and should afford to pay for a work of genius. When a purchase was made, he would say, “Make out the check to the artist for a certain amount and another check [usually for about twenty percent of the sale] for the rent fund.” He had a small income that gave him precarious independence.

  An American Place was there for anyone to come to; Stieglitz took nothing from it, it took everything from him. He told other artists what their work meant to him to their gain if they were big enough to accept the truth of his sincere opinion. He believed that art was one way of saying the essential things about life—what an individual feels about the world and his relationship to it and to his fellow human beings.

  However, the hours and days I spent with Stieglitz were often arduous in many ways. He would come forth with wise observations and then continue with a torrent of rhetoric on the difficulties that confronted him: inferior equipment, hostile camera club people, the lack of beautiful printing papers now that platinum paper was no longer made, the general perversity of museums and dealers, the proliferation of unneeded articles and ideas, and the insensitivity of both the public and the government to art. The repetitive insistence of his thoughts and opinions could wear the patience of angels. There was deep truth in many of his statements, but some merely indicated pique and disappointment over situations he might have managed better.

  Nancy Newhall had a fine relationship with Stieglitz. Beaumont suffered because he was “that man from the museum.” Museums were not in Stieglitz’s favor and he cast a cold eye on the policies, programs, and people of the museum world. Stieglitz’s security tower was so lofty and constraining that he resented practically everything that did not conform to his very rigid demands. His negative attitude toward museums was based in their failure, as perceived by him, in the adoration of the human spirit. Nancy contemplated a biography of Stieglitz, but his complex, mercurial character baffled her. He spoke in symbols and concepts, and it was difficult to hold him to a tangible statement.

  One day in 1946, Nancy arrived at An American Place and found him alone and quite ill; he had suffered a heart attack. She sent for an ambulance and he died in th
e hospital a few days later, July 13. When more than a year had passed since his death, I received a marvelous Stieglitz photograph from O’Keeffe, The City at Night, in its original delicate, white metal frame. I kept it in my studio for a while, then loaned it to the Museum of Modern Art for a traveling show of photography. I eventually gave it to the Art Museum at Princeton University in honor of David McAlpin. I felt it would do far more public good there than in my vault in Carmel.

  Following the usual procedure with gifts to not-for-profit public institutions, I had The City at Night evaluated for tax deduction purposes. To my surprise the valuation was $15,500! A few months after I filed my income tax I received a call from the IRS. The conversation was roughly as follows.

  IRS: “Mr. Adams, I have been assigned to your account and everything looks fine, except for one item. I think there is a typographical error. I think you intended perhaps $155, instead of $15,500 for the gift of a photograph to Princeton.”

  ADAMS: “No, the larger figure is correct.”

  IRS: “But for a photograph?”

  ADAMS: “It was so evaluated by a licensed appraiser.”

  IRS: “Well, what is the photograph of, Mr. Adams?”

  ADAMS: “It is of New York City at night by Alfred Stieglitz.”

  IRS: “I have not heard of the painter Alfred Stieglitz; is he recognized as a great artist?”

  ADAMS: “Yes, he was one of the great photographers in history.”

  IRS: “You mean it isn’t a photograph of an important painting?”

  ADAMS: “It is a direct photograph of New York City taken at night.”

  IRS: “Well, Mr. Adams, I do not think we can accept such a value for just a photograph!”

  ADAMS: “May I suggest you write Professor Peter Bunnell of the Art Museum at Princeton University for a description of the artist and the value of a Stieglitz print? He is an expert in the field of photography as an art form. I am sure he can properly explain the importance of this print.”

  IRS: “I shall be glad to do this, Mr. Adams, but I am sure he will consider it a typographical error. Thank you. Good day.”

  Bunnell wrote a scholarly letter that was an excellent dissertation on Stieglitz, his importance in American art, and the scarcity and value of his photographs. A few days after I received my carbon copy, the IRS telephoned. “Mr. Adams, we have received an enlightening letter from Professor Bunnell, and we wish to inform you that the valuation of your gift is accepted.”

  This event reminded me of the conversation I had with Dean Meeks of the Art Department of Yale University in 1933. I was urged to visit him and show him my work—the same group of prints I had shown Stieglitz. The dean was a most gracious and kindly person but had never seen my type of photographs.

  He was taken with Leaves, Mills College Campus and asked, “Just what is this?”

  I said, “It is a picture of foliage.”

  “Yes, I understand that, but what is the subject?”

  I said, “What do you mean?”

  He replied (just a bit testily), “What is the medium—is it an etching, a lithograph, or a detailed painting?”

  I said, “It’s a photograph!”

  I was finally able to convince him that it was a direct photograph from nature. He became quite excited and arranged an exhibit of my work at Yale in 1934. I did not expect him to know anything about me, but it was hard for me to believe that a leading art historian did not know of the work of the great contemporary photographers. He had “heard of Stieglitz, he’s a dealer in New York, I believe?” The names of Paul Strand and Arnold Genthe were unknown to him. Such was the awareness of photography in the halls of academia in the 1930s!

  I had met Stieglitz’s wife, the great painter Georgia O’Keeffe, in 1929 at Mabel Dodge Luhan’s and again saw her there in 1930. Stieglitz had discovered O’Keeffe’s extraordinary abilities as an artist, championed her painting, obsessively photographed her, and, despite an extreme difference in their ages, married her. By the time that I met Stieglitz, O’Keeffe had decided to reside and work in New Mexico, not as a separation from Stieglitz, but because of her determination to continue her work in a less distracting place than New York City. Stieglitz was forever set in the New York milieu, and in fact never traveled further west than Chicago, but he was impressed with the remarkable paintings she was making in the far-off and legendary New Mexico. There was a profound admiration and love between them, and their marriage survived in its unique way.

  I recall one wintry morning; it was sleeting outside and chilly within An American Place. Stieglitz was grim and of waxy complexion and did not want to talk. A little man, bespectacled and timid, with briefcase and rubbers, entered the Place and asked for Mr. O’Keeffe.

  Stieglitz glared at him and said with measured diction, “My name is Alfred Stieglitz, my wife, Georgia O’Keeffe, is in New Mexico. What do you want?”

  Undaunted, he replied, “I have some papers for you to sign, Mr. O’Keeffe, that relate to community investments.”

  Equally undaunted, Stieglitz drew himself up and repeated, “My name is Alfred Stieglitz, my wife, Georgia O’Keeffe, is now in New Mexico!”

  “Please, Mr. O’Keeffe.” Stieglitz gave up and signed the papers. The little man stuffed them back in his briefcase, walked to the door, opened it and turned to Stieglitz, saying, “Thank you very much, Mr. O’Keeffe,” and slammed the door as he left.

  Stieglitz slowly turned to me and said, “My name is Alfred Stieglitz, my wife, Georgia O’Keeffe, lives in New Mexico…” then turned and disappeared into the back room. I did not see him again that day.

  Another cold and gray day, O’Keeffe was in town and asked me for dinner at their apartment near the East River. I picked up a depressed Stieglitz at the gallery and we hailed a cab; the radio was blaring at an irritating decibel level.

  The driver asked, “Where to, gents?”

  Stieglitz replied, “Four-o-five East Fifty-fourth Street. Stop first at a liquor store. Turn off that goddamn radio!”

  “Yessir,” said the cabbie with a disconsolate expression. We stopped at a store, and I suggested that I purchase a bottle of bourbon.

  “Be sure it’s the best,” said Stieglitz.

  We proceeded to the apartment. He gave the cabbie a very generous tip and said, “Thank you! Now you can turn on that goddamn radio!”

  The cabbie smiled broadly and, as an aside to me, whispered, “Not such a bum geezer after all, huh?”

  We entered the apartment. I was the only one of the three of us to have a drink. After we had begun a sparse but tasty dinner, Stieglitz recalled to O’Keeffe that he and I had had a discussion that day during which I had daringly suggested that perhaps the great man was too removed from the world and that the wonderful paintings he showed should reach a larger audience.

  He said to O’Keeffe, “Adams thinks I should go public.”

  “Oh,” said O’Keeffe.

  Stieglitz continued, “He says I am esoteric.”

  “Oh?” said O’Keeffe with rising inflection.

  “What are we going to do about that, O’Keeffe?”

  “Well,” said O’Keeffe, “I am shocked! Have some more veal, Adams?”

  Stieglitz continued, “I thought he understood me.”

  I was getting very nervous but made no comment.

  O’Keeffe said, “He will learn, I hope.”

  Silence.

  Stieglitz said in a quiet voice, “I hope so, too.”

  O’Keeffe said, “More coffee, Adams?”

  No further comment on the subject. I had been properly chastised. What I had thought of as an objective discussion seemed to Stieglitz a questioning of his most basic principles that he felt were absolutes of uncompromising excellence for the benefit of the human spirit. It did become a happy evening as I was shown many beautiful drawings, paintings, and photographs.

  My friendship with O’Keeffe continues to this day. She is not a recluse but her daily program is full and intense and she
greatly dislikes casual conversation; hence, one manages an appointment with great difficulty and proof of serious intention. When she does greet you, she goes all out with generosity of time and hospitality, never elaborate but always in exquisite taste.

  O’Keeffe wears black on most occasions, with enormous distinction. The only jewelry I remember her wearing is a simple, silver pin made for her by Alexander Calder. She has the most impressive physical presence of anyone I have ever met.

  I have made a number of portraits of her over these past fifty years. On one of her visits with us in Carmel, I saw her in the very revealing light from my tall northwest-facing window and, rather catlike, I got out my Hasselblad, placed it on a tripod, put on the 120mm Distagon lens, and selected a back loaded with Tri-X film. She was sitting and enjoying the ocean, which was very lively that day.

  I busied myself, focusing on a neat assembly of coral and shells that Virginia had arranged, and then asked O’Keeffe, with perhaps forced casualness, “Would you mind if I tried to make a picture of you?”

  She replied, “Of course not, you were intending to do it all along.”

  I wanted her hands and face together, so I asked her to turn and rest her arms and place her face on her hands. What appeared was marvelous, though posed.

  She remarked, “Just like Stieglitz; he always posed me but he said it was natural.” A generous smile indicated she was not negative to the project. I think that the photograph I made was splendid, but she told me later, “I didn’t like that picture at all. You made me look so grim. I am not grim.” I admit that it is a strong picture, but I did not think it grim.

  In November 1981 she visited us again, and I was able to ask for the opportunity to photograph her with a straightforward approach. She agreed and, with my old and still excellent 35mm Zeiss Contarex Professional, I made a few images of her seated in our garden, backed with ferns and other greenery, in a soft, generous light. I am very happy with this picture. Her sight is now limited but her friend and assistant, the excellent sculptor Juan Hamilton, described it to her in great detail and assured her she would like it if she could see it clearly.