Although well known for his photography of the great American national parks such as Yellowstone, Ansel Adams also has a strong connection to Arizona. He was one of the founders of the University of Arizona’s Center for Creative Photography, one of the largest archives of Adams’ work; he was often published in Arizona Highways magazine; and he often photographed the wonders of Arizona from the San Xavier Mission near Tucson to the Grand Canyon and Canyon de Chelly.
The Phoenix Art Museum, in collaboration with the Center for Creative Photography, is presenting an exhibit of Ansel Adams’ photography entitled “Ansel Adams: Discoveries.” The exhibit features 120 photographs spanning the lifetime of Adams as well as documents from his personal archives.
Adams is best known for his sweeping landscape photography. But this exhibit highlights his work in the architectural photography realm as well as some portraiture he did during his career in addition to his well known nature and landscape work. It traces his relationship with Arizona Highways magazine and Eastman Kodak as well. But more than that, it presents Adams’ personal photography philosophies such as his concept of careful seeing – observing the subject in careful detail and truly seeing all that it had to present – as well as his struggles with and ideas on working with color photography.
This is a very well done exhibit of the full spectrum of Ansel Adams’ work and life. It runs at the Phoenix Art Museum until June 6, 2010. Admission to the museum is $10 for adults. But if you go on a Wednesday nights from 3 pm to 9 pm it is free.
Time is running out on this exhibit. But if you are in the Phoenix area and have some free time during the holidays it is well worth visiting. The Phoenix Art Museum has a partnership with the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ to exhibit some of the 3.8 million archival items and 80,000 fine prints in their collection.
The Face to Face, 150 Years of Photographic Portraiture exhibit runs until January 10, 2010. It is not a huge exhibit with about 70 portraits. But it includes work by some well known portrait photographers such as Edward Weston, Alfred Stieglitz, and Diane Arbus. The exhibit presents early portraiture from the 1800s up to modern times. It is a very well done display of some of the best of the best when it comes to portrait photography and well worth a trip to the Phoenix Art Museum.
As a bonus, the museum itself is a piece of art. It is a modern building with lots of concrete, glass and steel. The lines and structure of the building are a great compliment to the art it houses. I did not get a chance to photograph the museum or its grounds on this visit, but I plan to go back to see what kind of images I can capture.
I came across the Fraenkel Gallery recently thought I should share. If you have not heard of the gallery, as I hadn’t, it has been one of the top galleries focusing on photography in the US since 1979. It is located in San Francisco and has (and does) feature photographers such as Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus, and Lee Friedlander. The galleries on their website are well worth spending some time going through and being inspired by.
If you have any interest in photography you undoubtedly know who Ansel Adams is. His landscape photography, particularly of the Southwestern US, is world renowned. So if you are in the Southwest between now and February 14, 2010 you have a great opportunity to check out an exhibit at the Tucson Museum of Art featuring more than 100 of his photographs.
Ansel Adams has ties to Tucson through the Center for Creative Photography that he co-founded at the University of Arizona in 1975. A trip to Tucson to see the exhibit and then take in the Center for Creative Photography would be well worth it. If you have extra time to spend in Tucson bring your camera and check out some of these top spots for photography in Tucson.
Red Headed Woman. 2008 © All rights reserved Daniel Gordon 2009
Should you happen to be in or near New York City the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) opened its annual contemporary photography exhibit New Photography on September 30th. It runs through January 11, 2010. The exhibit features the work of six young artists whose styles range from abstract to representational. The exhibit attempts to answer the question “what it means to make a photograph in the twenty-first century.” The six artists displaying their work in this installation are, Walead Beshty, Daniel Gordon, Leslie Hewitt, Carter Mull, Sterling Ruby, Sara VanDerBeek.
For those of us in Phoenix the Phoenix Museum of Art has a portrait photography exhibit in place until January 10, 2010. Face to Face: 150 Years of Photographic Portraiture examines the photographic portrait. According to the museum’s site it explores “the stories portraits can tell, the ways photographers convey the essence of their subjects and the impact of the relationship between photographer and subject.“
