Allied Commander General Dwight Eisenhower examines Nazi-looted paintings found in a salt mine. Standing behind Eisenhower is General George Patton, who had resisted the MFA&A.
The Photographer’s Centennial Commemorated by SFMOMA
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. – The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will commemorate the centennial of the birth of photographer Ansel Adams (1902-1984) with “,” on view at the museum from August 4 through January 13, 2002. Although his work has been more widely exhibited than perhaps any artist in the Twentieth Century, Adams’ oeuvre has not been fundamentally reevaluated since his death in 1984.
Organized by guest curator John Szarkowski, director emeritus of the Department of Photography at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), “” presents an aesthetic reappraisal of Ansel Adams as an artist and working photographer by bringing together 114 of Adams’ finest photographs, represented by exemplary prints drawn from important public and private collections of Adams’ work.
Adams has become a monumental figure in popular culture. Yet, despite his creation of thousands of photographs and an immense range of publications, Adams’ signal contribution to the development of modern photography has ironically been obscured by his popularity. While Adams is widely recognized for such classic photographs as “Monolith, the Face of Half Dome,” 1927, and “Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico,” 1941, this exhibition – drawn largely from the first part of his career, the 20s to the 40s – situates such icons within the context of an unexpected and unfamiliar body of photographs that affirms Adams’ contribution to Twentieth Century art.
SFMOMA’s Education Department will present extensive interpretive programs public lectures and events to further enhance the visitor’s experience of the exhibition. The programs will be implemented at SFMOMA, on the Web and at schools throughout the Bay Area. One outstanding feature of the educational effort is a multimedia program – to be accessible at in-gallery kiosks and online at www.sfmoma.org – that will provide an in-depth exploration of key works and ideas represented in “.” In addition, an informative audio tour will be developed in collaboration with Antenna Audio using the latest MP3 technology.
To mark the 100th anniversary of Adams’ birth and coincide with the opening of the exhibition, Little, Brown and Company – the exclusive publisher of the work of Ansel Adams – will release . Written and edited by Szarkowski, this definitive volume on the artist and his work features prints that have been meticulously reproduced for the book under the supervision of Richard Benson, dean of the Yale University School of Art, recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant and a pivotal figure in recent advances in photographic production – and printed on specially made French paper.
The exhibition’s presentation at SFMOMA will be followed by a prestigious international tour; venues include the Art Institute of Chicago (February 20 to June 2, 2002); Hayward Gallery, London (July to September 2002); Kunstbibliothek, Berlin (October 10, 2002 to January 5, 2003); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (February 2 to April 27, 2003); and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (summer 2003).
SFMOMA is open daily (except Wednesdays) 11 am to 6 pm; Thursdays to 9 pm; summer hours (Memorial Day to Labor Day) 10 am to 6 pm. Visit www.sfmoma.org or 415-357-4000 for information.
