Ansel Adams
Page 24
You shall see earth sink in darkness and the universe appear.
No roof shall shut you from the presence of the moon.
You shall see mountains rise in the transparent shadow before dawn.
You shall see—and feel!—first light, and hear a ripple in the stillness.
You shall enter the living shelter of the forest.
You shall walk where only the wind has walked before.
You shall know immensity,
and see continuing the primeval forces of the world.
You shall know not one small segment but the whole of life, strange,
miraculous, living, dying, changing.
You shall face immortal challenges; you shall dare,
delighting, to pit your skill, courage, and wisdom
against colossal facts
You shall live lifted up in light;
you shall move among clouds.
You shall see storms arise, and, drenched and deafened,
shall exult in them.
You shall top a rise and behold creation.
And you shall need the tongues of angels
to tell what you have seen.
Were all learning lost, all music stilled,
Man, if these resources still remained to him,
could again hear singing in himself
and rebuild anew the habitations of his thought.
Tenderly now
let all men
turn to the earth.
Among the most rewarding exhibits of my career, and one of the most creative experiences with Nancy as well, was the huge show of my work she designed for the de Young Museum in 1963, bearing the same name as her biography of my early years, The Eloquent Light. Nine galleries were filled with over five hundred items, painstakingly gathered and organized in Nancy’s inimitable style: photographs, books, mementos, and typographic keepsakes I had produced or collaborated on from 1927 to the year of the exhibit. She introduced objects from Virginia’s and my personal collection—Indian pottery, Spanish American santos, old gravestones from abandoned San Francisco cemeteries—as well as natural objects from the Sierra—rocks, lightning-blasted stumps, lichened branches, and living trees.
Nancy made subtle color changes throughout the galleries, allowed ample space for prints and groups of prints to breathe and, above all, kept me out of the final decision-making process. She left out quite a few pictures that I considered favorites. No amount of pleading on my part would affect her decisive design intentions. I was a bit ruffled until after the exhibit was fully installed, then I understood what she was striving for and I fully agreed with the brilliance of her decisions.
In 1971 the Newhalls moved to Albuquerque where Beaumont began teaching the history of photography at the University of New Mexico, lending his great talents to an already distinguished faculty in photography as a fine art. Nancy and I continued to collaborate, though not as often as in the past. After smoking for a number of years, I developed a nicotine allergy that not only made smoking impossible but enhanced my sensitivity to the point where I could not tolerate the tobacco smoke of anyone else. While I was forced to break the cigarette habit, both Newhalls continued to smoke heavily, and this created a problem. While they understood, it was nevertheless an uncomfortable situation: having to keep a certain distance from two of my oldest and best-loved friends! My reaction to smoking is not a fanciful psychologic quirk: it is a very strong and very unpleasant physical experience.
One afternoon in 1974 I had a call from Beaumont and Nancy, who were in the Tetons having a short vacation. They had taken raft trips on the Snake River, which they greatly enjoyed, and had told me on the phone that they were taking another river trip on the morning of the next day, and if time permitted they would try still another in the afternoon.
The next evening Beaumont called and told me of Nancy’s accident. It was during the last afternoon trip; they were gliding along the south bank of the river (the area can be seen in my photograph The Tetons and the Snake River). A large tree, its roots weakened by severe winter storms, fell without warning into the river, directly on the inflated raft, striking Nancy. They had lost their guide and had no radio communication. It was hours before a helicopter could be summoned for transport to the Jackson Hole hospital. I called the next day only to be advised that she was in stable condition. On July 7, 1974, Beaumont called to tell me Nancy had died. I felt very badly that I had not flown down to be with Beaumont, but her injuries had not appeared life-threatening. She had seemed to be recovering, and the night before she and Beaumont had toasted their thirty-eighth anniversary.
Her death was a blow to us all and took quite some time to comprehend. There were so many projects and ideas awaiting study, planning, and completion that it was hard for us to accept the fact that the days of a creative genius were finished. Beaumont arranged for memorial concerts in Albuquerque and here in our Carmel home; friends came and listened to music and thought of Nancy. No service could have been more fitting for such a spirit.
Beaumont brought Nancy’s ashes down to a little beach near us, walked out into the water and cast them upon the restless Pacific Ocean. Edward Weston was also very much with us that afternoon. There was nothing to say, but everything to be felt and something to do. I believe in the tradition of the American West to “pass it on.” In that spirit Virginia and I in 1977 created and endowed the Beaumont and Nancy Newhall Curatorial Fellowship in Photography at MOMA.
It is difficult to understand the extraordinary coincidence of time and place; a tree, standing perhaps for centuries, weakens and falls at the precise moment the raft glides beneath it. The physical event is disturbing in itself, but the fact that Nancy Newhall, a dedicated writer and scholar, devoted to the wilderness, should have been the victim of this fearful moment in time is hard to accept without questioning the decisions of the gods in time and space.
15.
David McAlpin
ONE EVENING IN 1936, DURING A VISIT TO NEW YORK to see my exhibition at An American Place, I encountered Georgia O’Keeffe and her friend David Hunter McAlpin as we all exited from a movie theater. O’Keeffe introduced Dave, and we immediately resonated as friends.
Dave was a Rockefeller by birth, a banker by profession, and entranced by the world of art and collecting. O’Keeffe was his pilot through the confusing corridors of modern art; for him she was a kind of Pallas Athene and guided him as he established his abiding interest in art.
Dave was in awe of Stieglitz, who for several years refused to sell him an O’Keeffe painting, saying, “You’re not ready for it.” Many would resent this highhanded attitude, but Dave understood and admired Stieglitz all the more. Several years later he finally obtained his O’Keeffe.
When I first met Dave, he had recently separated from his first wife and he gave me the impression of being a rather lonely man. One day in 1941, I received a breezy letter from him, filled with happy thoughts and news: he was to marry Sally Sage, “the most marvelous girl in the world—she’s a dream and divine.” They honeymooned in Santa Fe where I had the pleasure of meeting Sally, and it was obvious that an ideal association had been established. She is a remarkably wise and kind woman and the perfect companion for Dave. Over the years I cannot think of them separately.
During my frequent trips to New York, Dave had often invited me to visit him at his Princeton, New Jersey, home. A stately structure in the American Colonial mode, it was surrounded by forest and bordered by a charming brook. There was a fine library and his grandfather’s excellent collection of Chinese bronze vases. I met many of his Princeton University friends and had generous tours of that great institution.
During one such visit he decided I should be initiated into the rituals of eastern equestrianism. I had brought only the suit I wore. He had an extra pair of riding breeches that were far too tight for me, but found no riding boots that fit; I wore my oxfords.
We drove to the stables where Dave kept his two magnificent and well-bred
horses. I had never used an English saddle before, as my riding experience was limited to the western mountains with a few plugging trail horses whose saddles had a pommel to hang on to. Whenever possible I preferred to walk both up and down trails and could keep ahead of most horses and pack mules.
My freedom of movement in those borrowed breeches was so limited that I could not mount the horse, and so the groom, suppressing hysterics, brought me a ladder. The horse did not like the ladder at all, but I finally was perched on a very active and alarmed creature who distrusted me from the start.
Off we went with gusto through woods and fields in the bright morning air. I had no idea how to steer an eastern horse. I had always pulled the reins to the right or left and western animals obligingly responded. But I discovered, after some dismaying reactions of the horse, that one pressed the rein on the neck to suggest the direction of travel. My horse was rolling its eyes and frothing and prancing about while an amused Dave tried to instruct me, chiefly by example.
Dave then decided to do a little jumping. We leaped a small creek and I instinctively grabbed for the nonexistent pommel. I thought the horse and I were to part company; only my strong piano-trained fingers holding on to the front edge of the saddle prevented that disaster. Then to my terror Dave headed for a low hedge with all the abandon of the Charge of the Light Brigade; my horse followed him, in spite of my yells and yanks on the reins. I saw only catastrophe ahead. At the last moment, Dave turned his horse aside and mine came to a sweaty, trembling halt. Dave, observing the condition of his other horse and its rider, decided to return to the stables. On arrival, the ladder was brought for my descent, but it took two men to control the terrified animal. I was embarrassed, Dave obviously relieved, and the horse seemed to be nearing a nervous breakdown. Dave never again suggested riding with me across the dewy fields of Princeton.
Some years later, Dave had the Newhalls and me down for a Princeton November weekend. He discovered that we had had little or no understanding of football and he was determined to rectify this gap in our cultural experience. We tried to describe our dislike for spectator sports, but Dave was adamant. In one phone call, he miraculously secured three seats for the Princeton-Yale game that afternoon. We accepted defeat and repaired after lunch to the large outdoor stadium where we found our places on the cold concrete steps that passed for seats. Dave went to his reserved seat in another part of the stadium. The Newhalls were warmly dressed, but I had only my thin California raincoat. A bit of sleet intensified our misery. I recall a large, chilled crowd and a muddy field, with a couple of ambulances awaiting possible business near the entrance.
Finally the game began. Knowing nothing about football, I concluded that it seemed principally to be conducted by rather futile rushes of a lot of men from one place in the field to another, ending in a scrambled pile of bodies that untangled and prepared for another rush and pileup. I finally noticed a man, carrying a ball, darting with wild energy through other men who were trying to catch him. He made it to the end of the field in a sliding splash; this resulted in a mighty surge of shrieks and yells from the audience. I was perplexed.
At this moment an elderly lady directly in front of me passed out. Her companion donated his overcoat to protect her, and in a moment of charitable carelessness I gave mine, such as it was, to the emergency. I sat in a condition of increasing frigidity while the stretcher men were called; I barely retrieved my coat as they carried her off. I have no idea what happened to her; I hoped, at least, that she was warm and cozy in the ambulance. Again huddled in my feeble coat, I endured the long remainder of the game: my first and last experience with the great American tradition of football.
When we rejoined Dave outside the stadium, he was beaming (Princeton, I think, had won) and said, “Wasn’t that a marvelous game?” Our rejoinders were most insincerely agreeable. We could not tell this wonderful friend that the experience was sleet on earth.
In the autumn of 1937, O’Keeffe invited Dave and me to visit at her home and studio, the Ghost Ranch, near Abiquiu, New Mexico. I wrote to Virginia, who was trapped with managing the studio in Yosemite.
My Dearest,
Things are going very well indeed. I think I have made some fine photographs, and the best of the trip is to come.
Thanks so much for the lens board and the Kodachrome. The mail comes in rather infrequently and goes out when it feels like it. Hence the lack of letters from you. They tell us when the mail is going out and then we write. It is amusing to see O’Keeffe get a dozen air mail letters from Stieglitz all at once. She is doing some extraordinary painting. We have good times together; I actually enjoy riding here. I have borrowed her car—she has two—and I scoot all over the country—on and off the roads. It’s a grand place.
O’Keeffe would drive for miles over the desert seeking visual excitements and fresh subjects to consider, usually returning to her studio after a period of contemplation to begin the actual painting. One day as I was driving around, captivated by the great landscape, I happened upon her as she was painting in her station wagon, protected from the hot summer sun. She had folded down the back seats and was comfortably seated before an easel, working away at a luminous painting of fantastic cliffs and a beautifully gestured dead piñon tree. I had recently acquired my first 35mm camera, a Zeiss Contax, and she allowed me to photograph her as she painted: a unique situation because she seldom welcomed people around her when she was working.
Dave, O’Keeffe, and I traveled on from the Ghost Ranch to explore parts of New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado with Orville Cox as our guide. Orville was head wrangler at the Ghost Ranch. He knew both New Mexico and Arizona very well and could also speak a number of the Indian languages.
I am deeply attached to the high desert regions of the American Southwest. Despite its seeming intrinsic ruggedness, the land is unusually fragile; roads and other developments appear as highly damaging and permanent intrusions. Here, no forests clothe in time the inequities of man’s destructive tendencies. No water soothes the persistent surface desiccation. Dust storms move sand and pebbles about, but do not really change the general aspect of the land. Occasional flash floods but slightly alter in man’s time the basic configurations of watercourses and alluvial fans.
Canyon de Chelly National Monument in northeast Arizona is an extraordinary experience, made more intense by the presence of its Navajo residents, who demonstrate that man can live with nature and sometimes enhance it. The Canyon de Chelly is geologically impressive. Its stone is largely solidified sand dunes, which accounts for the beautiful, flowing patterns revealed on the eroded cliffs. The floor of the canyon is almost entirely a sandy riverbed that in times of rain becomes of quicksand instability. In autumn, the cottonwoods take on a vibrant hue that blends with the warm colors of the cliffs.
Some of my best photographs have been made in and on the rim of the canyon. A favorite photograph from this trip was the one I made there with my Contax of O’Keeffe and Cox. The charm of O’Keeffe’s expression is arresting, most obviously not posed, a true “candid.” This was one special moment requiring the spontaneous capability of my 35mm camera, not the cumbersome and time-consuming setting up of my view camera.
Even in the Southwest, my enthusiasm for Yosemite and the High Sierra was frequently expressed, and finally Dave and O’Keeffe agreed to come. With his usual organizational ability, Dave planned a trip for September 1938, also including his cousin Godfrey Rockefeller and Godfrey’s wife, Helen. Unfortunately, again Virginia would have to stay in Yosemite and keep Best’s Studio open.
I enthusiastically wrote to Dave on July 11, 1938.
Dear Dave,
September 4th is not so far off. I can’t help shouting for joy that you will be here. WHOOPEE!!! whoopee (echo)… I really think the Sierra will be a revelation for you. And, if O’Keeffe comes the party will be extraordinary—never was there such a collection of personalities in the Sierra all at once! Please don’t think that I mean that the party would onl
y be extraordinary if O’Keeffe were along—but there is something about the lady that is dynamic, to say the least.…
Tell O’Keeffe that I will do everything I can to assure safe and convenient transportation of her sketching and painting materials. I plan to keep you all several days in camp in various places, and she will have a multitude of subjects that will excite her. During those stay-overs the photographers will go berserk—why not O’Keeffe?
Impress on O’Keeffe that she will see things she has never seen before, and see them under conditions that are rare. This is really important. There is no human element in the High Sierra—nothing like New Mexico. But there is an extraordinary and sculptural natural beauty that is unexcelled anywhere in the world.
On September 10 I wrote to Stieglitz:
Dear Stieglitz,
The gang is here!—O’Keeffe, Dave, the Rockefellers. We leave tomorrow morning for the high mountains, about fourteen mules, guide, packer, cook, much food, warm bedding, photographic equipment, and great expectations in general.
I met O’Keeffe at Merced and drove her into Yosemite Tuesday. She likes our country, and immediately began picking out white barns, golden hills, oak trees. As we climbed through the mountains the scene rapidly changed and as we entered Yosemite she was practically raving, “Well, really, this is too wonderful!” We came into Yosemite at dusk, a very favorable hour, and the first impression will not be forgotten.
The only regrettable thing is that you are not out here seeing all this with us. I know you would like many of our places, not the kind of place you have to ride a mule to, but just warm, rich places along the road, or as seen from the porch chair.
To see O’Keeffe in Yosemite is a revelation; for a while I was in a daze. Her mood and the mood of the place, not a conflict, but a strange, new mixture for me. She actually stirred me up to photograph Yosemite all over again, to cut all the advertising rot and see things for myself once more.