NYAB Event - Ansel Adams "Masterworks"

Ansel Adams "Masterworks"

Baruch College/Sidney Mishkin Gallery

This event has ended.

The most majestic of American photographers, Ansel Adams is also among the most accessible. His photographs of Western vistas, especially those of his native California, are both iconic and beloved, even by people whose knowledge of 20th century photography is severely limited.

An exhibition of 47 of Adams’ classic photographs from the Collection of the Turtle Bay Exploration Park, Reading, California, will be on view at Baruch College’s Mishkin Gallery. These photos were originally chosen by Adams himself to be part of the “Museum Set,” a succinct overview of his finest work.

It is a measure of Adams’ photographic genius, that so many of his subjects create a sense of intimacy with the viewer, while simultaneously and paradoxically evoking the power and grandeur of the natural world. Although actual people rarely appear in Adams’ photographs of the Sierra Nevada or Yosemite National Park, the images are nonetheless imbued with a deep sense of humanity. For this reason, Adams’ work has made inestimable contributions to the preservation of national parks and pristine wilderness sites across the United States. Adams used the three Guggenheim Fellowships he received in his lifetime to record national parks not only in California, but also in Alaska, Hawaii and elsewhere.

During his life, Ansel Adams was known as a teacher, critic, and publisher of portfolios, as well as an important figure in the development of photography as a recognized art form. A co-founder of the department of photography at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Adams was also a longtime consultant to the Polaroid Corporation and a consistent advocate for a plainspoken, accessible approach to photography. In 1979, he was the subject of a Time magazine cover story and in 1980 he received the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.