Ansel Adams

by Ansel Adams

  I have been the victim of a few other questionable ventures. I learned a bit too late of the importance of fine legal advice in such matters and much too late was I brought to realize the need for constant alertness. On the whole, however, I have been more free of such troubles than most photographers I know. When we signed the contract for Taos Pueblo, Mary Austin remarked, “This must be carefully checked by both our lawyers; agreements between friends must be perfectly clear.”

  Though I have often clashed with the corporate philosophy that governs YPCCO, Yosemite has become, in my estimation, the best managed national park. Led by the dedicated efforts of such men as the present president of YPCCO, Edward C. Hardy, and our excellent National Park Service superintendent, Robert O. Binnewies, Yosemite is more sensitively alive for the visitor than it was during my first visits nearly seventy years ago. I must caution that there are many important changes to be made in the future as the demands on the very small area of the valley itself increase and as the High Sierra’s charms are discovered by new generations. But as we progress to even better solutions, Yosemite remains in safe and caring hands.

  The years of working for YPCCO had brought the great friendship of the Spencers, and Ted and Jeannette grew constantly in our estimation and affection. Secure in their knowledge and ability, they contributed in endless ways to the improvement of the cultural condition. They were consistent in demanding the highest in expression and execution and in professional ethics. With them I felt the warmest relationship of true comrades.

  They both held important jobs in many areas of the country besides Yosemite, comprising architecture, planning, and decoration. Ted was the supervising architect for all building projects at Stanford from 1946 to 1960. Among other projects, he also designed the convention center at Williamsburg, Virginia, and the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory for the University of California, Berkeley.

  We often talked of art, aesthetics, architecture and the world, and on and on we shared our ideas over the decades. I wrote to Ted on February 8, 1947:

  I have been thinking a lot of late of that thing called Art, and my thoughts in the main have not been too pleasant. Sometimes I think I have a prophet complex, because I am constantly looking for the quality of prophecy in art. That thing which is concerned more with life and the world in both now and in the time to come—not just in the now. I guess I get that to a certain extent from Stieglitz. Most of what I see seems more mere decoration than profound expression—and directed towards the most artificial and fragile elements of our culture. What I call the Natural Scene—just nature—is a symbol of many things to me, a never-ending potential. I have associated the quality of health (not merely in the physiological or psychological sense) with the quality and moods of sun and earth and vital, normal people. The face of most art reminds me of a human face, bewildered, wide-eyed, with a skin of pallor and pimples. The relatively few authentic creators of our time possess a resonance with eternity. I think this resonance is something to fight for—and it takes tremendous energy and sacrifice.

  14.

  The Newhalls

  MY FIRST CONTACT WITH BEAUMONT NEWHALL WAS reading his stringent review of my introduction to The Studio Annual of Camera 1934–35 in the January 1935 American Magazine of Art. I was a young and unsophisticated critic with only a novice’s experience in the complex world of art, photography, and museums. Newhall took me to task for my failure to be sufficiently objective in my expressed opinions. His criticism was valuable to me, because he taught me the difference between aggressive personal opinion and logical presentation of facts. Of course, at this time the Group f/64 manifesto was still fresh in my mind and my criticism strongly reflected this bias. In retrospect our philosophy seems a little rigid, but I doubt it would have been as effective had we softened its objectives or been gentle in its promotion.

  I found it difficult to understand the great patience of the art historian, such as Beaumont, to study, annotate, and write so carefully, slowly, and precisely upon the multiple concerns of that field. It is a form of creative architecture: designing and structuring edifices of information and interpretation. I began to see how the reconstruction of a work of art in terms of its time, its development and function, and its relationship to the history of art became, in a very positive way, a creative expression in itself.

  My first technical book, Making a Photograph, was published in 1935. I soon received a letter from the same Mr. Newhall, now writing heartwarming comments on my new book. He had a strong interest in photography, and this book apparently reaffirmed his opinion that it was an art form. I still get great satisfaction that the book stressed straight photography, incorporated Group f/64 philosophy, and, despite the date of publication and the dominance of the pictorialists, was very successful. The photographic reproductions are so good that, a few years ago, a bookstore advertised Making a Photograph as containing original prints and priced it at thirty-five hundred dollars! I immediately advised them of their mistake.

  Edward Weston wrote in his foreword to this book:

  In the last analysis, man himself is seen as the actual medium of expression. Guiding the camera, as well as the painter’s brush, there must be a directing intelligence—the creative force.

  I wrote in the introduction:

  David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson succeeded both in making remarkable photographs and in demonstrating one of the basic principles of art: complete expression within the limitations of the medium… we can trace the development of photography as an art through a multitude of individuals, movements, and methods down to the present day. This development, however, is not entirely one of progress.

  The flood of pictorialism did not obliterate the slender thread of communication between the integrity of the earlier years and its hopeful reanimation in the present. This thread, which continued the true identity of the art, was maintained with heroic devotion by Alfred Stieglitz more than by any other individual. Through his life-long efforts, photography has been vastly aided in the reassertion of its real quality and purpose. The photographic renaissance, anticipated by Stieglitz, has become a vital actuality in the last two decades.

  Following Beaumont’s letter to me regarding Making a Photograph, we began corresponding, and in 1939, while in New York, I met both Beaumont and his wife, Nancy, for the first time. We were to rendezvous in front of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and proceed to lunch. I was a bit nonplussed to read an unpublished account of how Nancy described this event—my western exuberance contrasted sharply with New York conventions:

  In the sunlight before the curving, shimmering entrance cove, there was something that looked like a stroboscopic photograph. Bright whirls of metal slowed into a tripod, the dark blur resolved itself into a tall, thin man in a wide black hat, turning the tripod head this way and that, as if a camera were fastened there. Then he condensed the tripod, tossed it up in the air, and tested its weight. He saw us approaching with amusement—thus every photographer with a new device, even Ansel Adams, and we all began to laugh. Introductions over, he put the tripod through its paces again. “See—it goes up to twelve feet!” It shot up glittering, he settled it on its legs and shook it. “Steady as a rock!” Seeing us looking up—“Don’t worry! I always carry a fireladder!”—and brought it down again. Tenderly turning and tilting the head again, he slid out the bed and screwed the invisible camera firmly thereon. “It’ll hold an eight by ten!”

  We were watching the man more than his demonstration. What an extraordinary, mercurial, multiple being! A lion, when you looked into that ardent countenance—the warm brown eyes brilliant under black lashes and flaring, quizzical brows, eyes set wide and deep under the wide, smooth dome, dimmed only by a few wisps of fine black hair, the broken eagle beak of the nose and the unconquerable chin (no beard in those days). An ape, when you considered the delicate ears forever pricked forward as though to catch the furthest whisper, the short, strong neck sunk into the hunch stance of the heavy-pack-carrying mount
aineer, the long arms with the thick wrists and powerful tapering fingers. The whole man was radiant; he was like the sun. Yet you waited for the shadow, I don’t know why.

  Now, black hat tugged firmly down, with his mountaineer’s loping stride, he was clunking the tripod along the pavement. At the corner of Fifth Avenue we waited for the light to change. People stopped to look at him better: some tittered. For a moment he looked sad and a little severe, then he lifted his chin, smiled and we went clunk! clunk! across Fifth Avenue to our favorite Cafe St. Denis.

  The three of us hit it off immediately, bursting with stories and jokes throughout the meal. I contributed my poem:

  Lines to a Waitress

  on being advised that there is only Swiss Cheese left…

  When hair grows on the Camembert

  And bugs infest the Brie

  When Edam dries

  And Roquefort dies

  Dear Miss, it’s Swiss for me.

  Nancy followed with this story. She and her mother were having lunch at the same elegant restaurant we were in when her mother observed a cockroach on the back of her seat. She quickly called the waiter, who deftly entrapped the insect and exclaimed, “Mon Dieu! How did that get out of the Stork Club?”

  The Newhalls and I shared a New England ancestry. I shall never be sure if this was an advantage or not: such background measures freedom, partitions enjoyment, and creates ideals that are often impossible to realize. We had our private heroes, saints, and creeds as well as our devils, purgatories, and hells.

  Beaumont was trained as an art historian at Harvard and, after a short period as an assistant in the Department of Decorative Arts of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in 1935 he was appointed librarian at MOMA. His fine scholarship was evident in the quality of the library that grew rapidly under his direction.

  Nancy Parker graduated from Smith College in 1930, where she had majored in creative writing, drama, and painting. She also studied at the Art Students League in New York. She and Beaumont married in 1936, and their mutual passion for photography and its aesthetic, expressive, and social potentials flourished simultaneously. They became leaders in the world of photography—its history and interpretation.

  Nancy Newhall had in every respect as fine a mind as Beaumont, though she was far more extroverted and had strong, passionately stated opinions; she brought intensity to every situation. Nancy had enormous creative energy: it was difficult for anyone to keep pace with her. Inspirations came with astonishing frequency. She would create problems for the sheer delight in solving them. Many women disliked her incisiveness and courage, and many men resented her capabilities.

  Beaumont, on the other hand, is always calm and in perfect control of events, no matter how exasperating. He is extremely intelligent and patient, with an inherited New England rectitude that suggests an austerity that belies his sparkling wit. He is dedicated to photography in all its aspects. Originally published in 1937 as a catalog for a MOMA exhibition, his History of Photography is the prime work in the field, keeping pace through several editions with new discoveries and cogent clarifications.

  Beaumont is also a photographer with a discerning eye. I saw a few of his pictures as early as the 1950s, but found him reticent to show or discuss them. He was finally prevailed upon to put together a show that surprised and vastly pleased his friends. His portrait of Cartier-Bresson is remarkable and haunting in its qualities of personality and space. His architectural series of Leopoldskron in Salzburg, Austria, is a stunning example of perception and photographic facility. In recent years his photographs have gained recognition to a gratifying degree.

  In 1940 I was asked to curate a major exhibition, “A Pageant of Photography,” for the Golden Gate Exposition. I decided to exhibit a rich diversity of photographs: from the beginnings to the present, from Timothy O’Sullivan landscapes to Man Ray “Rayographs.” The catalog was large, with handsome reproductions and short essays by Beaumont Newhall, Edward Weston, Moholy-Nagy, Dorothea Lange, N. U. Mayall (Lick Observatory), Grace Morley (director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art), and Paul Outerbridge. I was proud of the exhibition.

  Diego Rivera, the great Mexican painter, was also employed at the Golden Gate Exposition. Rivera was invited to paint murals in front of the public, in a project titled, “Art in Action.” Albert Bender, a patron of Rivera, was instrumental in arranging this project. I remember a meeting in Rivera’s rooms at the St. Francis Hotel; he was quite rotund, sporting a broad, friendly grin and dressed in a colorful Mexican costume. I was impressed by his steady attention to what people were saying. I felt he knew what we were thinking as well—he anticipated several things I had to say seconds before I had summoned the bravery to say them.

  After an hour’s discussion about problems related to the exposition, a bellboy brought a telegram to his room. Rivera opened it and, after a glance, went into obvious distress, saying “I am next! I am next!” The message was that Leon Trotsky, who was living in Rivera’s Mexico City home, had just been assassinated. Rivera was a Communist but at odds with the Leninist regime. He immediately asked for police protection, and the leaders of the exposition promptly arranged for it. Thankfully, no violence marred the visit of this great artist to our city.

  Rivera had many friends in San Francisco. One of the most devoted was Emily Joseph. They enjoyed mutual bright conversation and banter. One day she visited him while he was at work on the large fresco at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute). Diego was artist-in-residence and was having a deep effect upon the students. The fresco was in typical and topical Rivera style; prominent San Franciscans were depicted in appropriate environments and activities, and Diego himself was painted sitting on a sturdy plank, working on the mural. Emily visited him when he was working on an area adjacent to his own rear-view self-portrait. She called to him, saying, “Diego, there is no doubt you are painting this for posteriority.” It became the bon mot of the season.

  During the whirl of the exposition, the Newhalls announced that they would visit San Francisco with the prime objective of seeing me and “A Pageant of Photography.” I was understandably nervous about their reaction to my first attempt as the curator of a major show.

  I decided they must see the sights, and we had a grand time. Upon arrival, I took them to the Top of the Mark to have a drink and watch the fog sweep in. The next day we drove along the shores of the marvelous bay itself and to Treasure Island, the site of the exposition. Nancy later wrote in the same unpublished manuscript:

  It was indeed huge and comprehensive, immaculate in installation, perfectly lighted, though to us the design was monotonous, with the endless successions of black and white rectangles on pallid walls. The photomurals he had made from astronomical negatives, especially the Pleiades and the corona of the sun during a total eclipse were breathtaking. And what a survey of the work of Western photographers, both early and contemporary; there were many we did not know and were rejoiced to see. Group f/64 had certainly established high standards of vision and technique. The show as a whole, we thought, represented a breadth of mind and heart unusual among creative artists with such strong personal dedications as Adams. By far the finest art we saw in the West was in photography, not in painting, nor sculpture, not even in architecture. Beyond question, photography was the art of the West—“A new art in a new land.”

  The Newhalls were overcome by their experiences on this first trip to California. One day I drove them north over the Golden Gate Bridge and along the Marin County coast. We had Benny Bufano with us, a fine sculptor, a true San Francisco character, and a warm friend. His prime subject, Saint Francis of Assisi (patron saint of San Francisco), was portrayed in various media: drawings, painting, mosaics, and sculpture. The cowled figure with wide-stretched arms was repetitively stylized but impressive. He had an extraordinary ability to create in his sculpture almost invisible edges that could be felt as sharp, defining transitions of form.

  Benny loved hiki
ng as much as I. Once we were in Yosemite and had climbed the steep slopes to the base of the cliffs under Taft Point on the south side of the valley. Benny was talking about the local Sierra granite, how rich it was in structure and consistent in body. I noticed him staring across the valley to the huge soaring mass of El Capitan.

  I jokingly said, “Now, Benny, don’t get any ideas of carving F.D.R.’s head on that cliff!”

  To my horror Benny replied, “That’s just what I was thinking about; as soon as we get home I’ll call my friend Eleanor.” I honestly feared he might attempt to set such a concept in motion. He was a short man, compactly muscled, and wielded a mighty chisel.

  I also drove the Newhalls to Carmel where I introduced them to Edward Weston. They visited his home and went with him to Point Lobos, where they experienced the wonders of his work and environment. Thus began a close association culminating in Nancy’s editing of Edward’s Daybooks, the very personal journals of his life and philosophy finally published in 1961 (Volume I: Mexico) and 1966 (Volume II: California).

  We were all visually invigorated after our time spent with Edward, and we stopped frequently to photograph on the trip back to San Francisco. At one place along the Highway One roadside, I photographed from a cliff top, directing my camera almost straight down to the surf patterns washing upon the beach below in a continuing sequence of beautiful images. As I became aware of the relations between the changing light and surf, I began making exposure after exposure. Though each photograph can be shown separately, a group of five displayed together has the greatest effect. Surf Sequence is one of my most successful photographic expressions.

  Soon after Beaumont and Nancy returned to New York, we began the enormous parade of photographic projects that the three of us concocted over the next few decades. While all could not be implemented, for want of energy and time, the seeds of many important projects and books had been sown during their San Francisco visit. We composed a productive and vibrant association. These were indeed golden days: everything exuded energy and friendship.