Ansel Adams
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36 Alfred Stieglitz to Ansel Adams, May 13, 1935, in M. Alinder and Stillman, Letters and Images, 77. Ansel Adams Collection. Collection Center for Creative Photography © 1981 Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents.
37 Ansel and Virginia Adams, Eastman Studio Cash Book (July 30, 1931–January 6, 1936), CCP.
38 Ansel Adams to Virginia Adams, March 9, 1935, in M. Alinder and Stillman, Letters and Images, 76.
39 B. Newhall, Focus, 57.
40 Reproduced in Gray, An American Place, 12 and 21.
41 N. Newhall, Eloquent Light, 124.
42 Ansel Adams to Virginia Adams, January 17, 1936, in M. Alinder and Stillman, Letters and Images, 80–81.
43 Ansel Adams, “The Meaning of Exposure: Practical Exposure,” Zeiss Magazine 3 (June 1937): 107–109, 120; Ansel Adams, “Landscape Photography: Exposure and Development,” Zeiss Magazine 3 (December 1937): 236–237, 243.
44 Louise Hewlett, “The 1936 Outing,” Sierra Club Bulletin 22 (February 1937): 58–68.
45 Ibid., 60.
46 Reproduced in Gray, An American Place, pl. 31.
47 Ibid., pl. 38.
48 Ibid., 22. Agfa Brovira was one of the last pure bromide papers to be manufactured, the silver mixed with bromide rather than a mix of silver-bromide and silver-chloride.
49 Mrs. Patricia English Farbman, interview with the author, May 17, 1994, tape recording.
50 Ansel Adams to Alfred Stieglitz, October 11, 1936, in M. Alinder and Stillman, Letters and Images, 84.
51 Stieglitz presented solo exhibitions of his own work in 1932, with 117 prints and his first solo show in eight years, and another in 1934–35. Greenough, My Faraway One, 621–622; and Whelan, Alfred Stieglitz, 524.
52 Gray, An American Place, 38.
53 Howard DeVree, “A Reviewer’s Notebook: Among New Exhibitions,” New York Times, November 1936, sec. 10, p. 9.
54 Gray, An American Place, 29.
55 Alfred Stieglitz to Ansel Adams, December 16, 1936, in M. Alinder and Stillman, Letters and Images, 88–89.
56 The White Tombstone, Laurel Hill Cemetery, San Francisco, California, reproduced in M. Alinder and Stillman, Letters and Images, 85.
57 Ansel Adams to Virginia Adams, November 11, 1936, transcribed by Nancy Newhall, CCP.
58 Ansel Adams, “My First Ten Weeks with a Contax,” Camera Craft 43, no. 1 (January 1936): 14–20.
59 Comment attributed to Dorothy Norman. Sue Davidson Lowe, Stieglitz: A Memoir/Biography (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1983), 302.
60 Ansel Adams to Alfred Stieglitz, November 27–28, 1936, in M. Alinder and Stillman, Letters and Images, 85–88.
9. LOSING HEART
1 Mrs. Patricia English Farbman, interview with the author, May 17, 1994, tape recording.
2 Patsy English was paid $175 from August 13 to October 31, 1936. Ansel and Virginia Adams, check register, August 10, 1934–April 2, 1937, CCP.
3 Farbman interview, 1994.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid. In 1981, Virginia informed my husband, Jim, and me of the abortion.
6 Mrs. Farbman learned just how similar they were when she read Ansel Adams: Letters and Images, 1916–1984 published in 1988, four years after Ansel’s death. Out of consideration for Virginia, her letters were chosen for publication, to the exclusion of the ones to Patsy.
Mrs. Farbman gave fifty-two of Ansel’s letters to her, written in 1936–1938, to the Center for Creative Photography. Ansel wrote eleven letters to her during November 1936 alone.
7 Ansel Adams to Alfred Stieglitz, December 15, 1936, Beinecke Library, Yale University.
8 Ansel Adams to Alfred Stieglitz, December 1936, Beinecke Library, Yale University. Dante Hospital was located at the corner of Van Ness Avenue and Broadway in San Francisco.
9 Farbman interview, 1994. Patsy English Farbman died in San Francisco in 2010. She was ninety-six years old. Nathan Farbman died in 1988 at the age of eighty-one.
10 Ansel Adams to Cedric Wright [late December 1936], in Mary Street Alinder and Andrea Gray Stillman, eds., Ansel Adams: Letters and Images, 1916–1984 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1988), 92–93.
11 This exact print was sold at auction in October 2013 at Swann Auction Galleries.
12 Robinson Jeffers, “Rock and Hawk,” Rock and Hawk: A Selection of Shorter Poems by Robinson Jeffers, ed. Robert Hass (New York: Random House, 1987).
13 Patricia English Farbman, interview with the author, September 7, 1995; Adams to Stieglitz, December 1936, Yale University.
14 Farbman interview, 1994.
15 Ansel Adams to Cedric Wright [late December 1936], ibid.
16 Ansel Adams to Alfred Stieglitz, January 29, 1937, Beinecke Library, Yale University.
17 Ansel and Virginia Adams, check register, August 10, 1934–April 2, 1937, CCP.
18 Ansel Adams to Alfred Stieglitz, February 10, 1937, Beinecke Library, Yale University.
19 Ansel Adams to Alfred Stieglitz, February 17, 1937, Beinecke Library, Yale University.
20 Ansel Adams to Alfred Stieglitz, March 3, 1937, Beinecke Library, Yale University. They lived at 2730 Buena Vista Way.
21 Ansel Adams to Alfred Stieglitz, March 21, 1937, Beinecke Library, Yale University.
22 Ansel Adams to Alfred Stieglitz, January 3, 1937, Beinecke Library, Yale University.
It seems likely that Ansel’s parents or Albert Bender picked up the tab for Dante Hospital, as Ansel and Virginia’s check register for that time records only one payment of $15 from them. They did pay St. Francis Hospital a total of $209.80, with three checks dated between February 2, 1937, and March 30, 1937. Adams check register, CCP.
23 Notes from interview with Virginia Adams by Nancy Newhall, May 12, 1947, CCP.
24 Virginia Adams, interview with the author, May 17, 1988.
25 Ibid.
26 Farbman interview, 1994.
27 Ibid.
28 Edward Steichen, The Family of Man (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1955).
29 Farbman interview, 1994.
30 Nancy Newhall, The Eloquent Light (Millerton, N.Y.: Aperture, 1980), 134.
31 Shirley Sargent, Yosemite & Its Innkeepers (Yosemite: Flying Spur Press, 1975), 82–83.
32 Ibid, 44–45. Don Tresidder was the president of Stanford University from 1943 to 1948, when he suddently died at the age of fifty-four of a heart attack.
33 Edwin Kiester, Jr., “A Christmas That Never Was,” Modern Maturity, December 1991–January 1992, 30–34, 88–91.
34 Shirley Sargent, The Ahwahnee Hotel (Yosemite: Yosemite Park and Curry Company, 1990), 40–41.
35 Andrea Fulton, The Bracebridge Dinner (Yosemite: Yosemite Park and Curry Company, 1983), 7.
36 Ansel Adams with Mary Street Alinder, Ansel Adams: An Autobiography (Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1985), 182–183.
37 Donald B. Tresidder to Ansel Adams, November 18, 1929, Yosemite National Park Research Library (hereinafter cited as YNPRL).
38 Fulton, The Bracebridge Dinner, 31–33.
39 Ibid., 33–35. Ansel finally retired from the Bracebridge in 1973, having missed only the years of World War II and two occasions when winter flooding interfered. The Bracebridge Dinner has become so popular that seats can only be obtained through a public lottery.
40 Life 5, no. 26 (December 26, 1938), cover, 16.
41 Ansel Adams to Donald B. Tresidder, November 1, 1929, YNPRL.
42 Donald Tresidder to Ansel Adams, November 18, 1929, YNPRL.
43 Sargent, Yosemite & Its Innkeepers, 119–121.
44 Ansel Adams to Virginia Adams, February 28, 1930, in M. Alinder and Stillman, Letters and Images, 42–45; Ansel Adams, “Ski-Experience,” Sierra Club Bulletin 16 (February 1931): 44–46, plus six photographic reproductions.
45 Tresidder’s original set of ski pictures by Ansel is in the collection of the Museum of Art, Stanford University. Reproductions can be seen in “Ski-Experience,” Sierra Club Bulletin, February 1931; A. Adams with M. Ali
nder, Autobiography, 187; and M. Alinder and Stillman, Letters and Images, 43.
46 Records of Yosemite Park and Curry Company, YNPRL.
47 Ansel Adams, “Conversations with Ansel Adams,” an oral history conducted 1972, 1974, 1975 by Ruth Teiser and Catherine Harroun, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1978, 375.
48 Robert Silberman, “Scaling the Sublime: Ansel Adams, the Kodak Colorama and ‘The Large Print Idea’” in Michael Read, ed., Ansel Adams: New Light (San Francisco: The Friends of Photography, 1993), 33–41; Lincoln Kirstein and Julien Levy, Murals by American Painters and Photographers (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1932).
49 Richard Whelan, Alfred Stieglitz: A Biography (Boston: Little, Brown, 1995), 537.
50 A. Adams with M. Alinder, Autobiography, 187.
51 Ansel Adams, “Photo-Murals,” U.S. Camera 1, no. 12 (November 1940), 52–53, 61–62, 71–72. Ansel probably made a total of thirteen screen. Most were composed of three panels, but a few were composed of four or five panels. The height of the screens varied from about five-and-one-half-feet tall to six-and-a-half feet.
52 Ansel Adams to Donald B. Tresidder, July 3, 1938, YNPRL.
53 Ibid.; and Virginia Adams to Stanley Plumb, August 29, 1938, YNPRL.
54 Ansel Adams to Alfred Stieglitz, November 12, 1937, in M. Alinder and Stillman, Letters and Images, 101–103.
55 Ansel Adams to Yosemite Park and Curry Company, November 21, 1938, YNPRL.
56 Donald B. Tresidder to Stanley Plumb, August 15, 1938, YNPRL.
57 Ansel Adams to Donald B. Tresidder, November 21, 1938, YNPRL.
58 Tresidder to Plumb, August 15, 1938, YNPRL.
59 Photographed by Ansel Adams, Edited by Stanley Plumb, The Four Seasons in Yosemite National Park: A Photographic Story of Yosemite’s Spectacular Scenery (Yosemite: Yosemite Park and Curry Company, 1936).
60 Ansel Adams, witnessed by Virginia Adams, to Donald B. Tresidder, April 25, 1939, YNPRL.
61 Eliot Porter, Eliot Porter (Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1987), 27.
62 Ibid., 30. Three of Porter’s photographs that were exhibited at An American Place are reproduced on pages 28, 29, and 31.
63 Andrea Gray, Ansel Adams: An American Place, 1936 (Tucson: Center for Creative Photography, 1982), 32.
64 David McAlpin to Alfred Stieglitz, January 7, 1939, Beinecke Library, Yale University.
65 Nancy Newhall, “Alfred Stieglitz: Notes for a Biography,” in From Adams to Stieglitz: Pioneers of Modern Photography (New York: Aperture, 1989).
10. FRIENDS
1 Nancy Newhall, The Eloquent Light (Millerton, N.Y.: Aperture, 1980), 131.
2 Beaumont Newhall, Focus: A Life in Photography (Boston: Bulfinch Press, 19 93), 20–39.
3 Ibid., 45.
4 Beaumont Newhall, Photography 1839–1937 (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1937), 11–27.
5 Roger Watson and Helen Rappaport, Capturing the Light: The Birth of Photography, a True Story of Genius and Rivalry (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2014).
6 B. Newhall, Focus, 34–37.
7 Ibid., 46–47.
8 Analysis of the checklist of Photography 1839–1937.
9 Beaumont Newhall to Ansel Adams, January 3, 1937, CCP; N. Newhall, Eloquent Light, 131.
10 B. Newhall, Focus, 45.
11 Excerpt from review of exhibition by Edward Alden Jewell, in B. Newhall, Focus, 51.
12 Henry McBride, review in New York Sun, in B. Newhall, Focus, 52–53.
13 N. Newhall, Eloquent Light, 136; Ansel Adams, “The New Expanding Photographic Universe,” in Willard D. Morgan and Henry M. Lester, eds., Miniature Camera Work (New York: Morgan & Lester, 1938), 69–75.
14 N. Newhall, Eloquent Light, 134–135.
15 Francis P. Farquhar, foreword to the first edition, and Richard M. Leonard, “Walter A. Starr, Sr.,” in Walter A. Starr, Jr., Starr’s Guide to the John Muir Trail and the High Sierra Region (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1974).
16 Ansel Adams to Patsy English, July 19, 1937, CCP.
17 Charis Wilson Weston and Edward Weston, California and the West (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1940), 13. This is an account of their Guggenheim travels, text by Charis and photographs by Edward.
18 N. Newhall, Eloquent Light, 136.
19 “Notes on Art,” San Francisco Examiner, August 15, 1937, E5.
20 Rondal Partridge, interviews with the author, March 25, 1988, and November 13, 1995. Partridge was Ansel’s photographic assistant from 1937 to 1939.
21 Ansel Adams to Arno B. Cammerer, Director, National Park Service, May 29, 1937, Yosemite National Park Research Library.
22 C. and E. Weston, California and the West, 59.
23 Ibid., 60–61. Courtesy of Charis Wilson.
24 Edward Weston, Charis, Lake Ediza, reproduced as a plate between pages 48 and 49 of California and the West.
25 Ansel Adams, Detail, Devil’s Postpile, Ansel Adams, Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail (Berkeley: Archetype Press, 1938), plate xiii.
26 C. and E. Weston, California and the West, 64. Courtesy of Charis Wilson.
27 Ibid., 65–66.
28 Rondal Partridge interviews.
29 Ibid.
30 C. and E. Weston, California and the West, 66. Courtesy of Charis Wilson.
31 Edward Weston to Ansel Adams [1937], Mary Street Alinder and Andrea Gray Stillman, eds., Ansel Adams: Letters and Images, 1916–1984 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1988), 104. Ansel Adams Archive. Collection Center for Creative Photography © 1981 Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents.
32 Rondal Partridge interviews.
33 Ibid.
34 Ansel Adams to Nancy Newhall, April 15, 1961, in M. Alinder and Stillman, Letters and Images, 273.
35 Ansel Adams to Mr. Charles Nagel, Director, City Art Museum, St. Louis, July 27, 1945. Collection of City Art Museum of St. Louis.
36 Dr. Donald W. Olson to Mary Alinder and Mary Alinder to Don Olson, a number of e-mails including May 2, 2010. Meteorological Record: December 1935, Yosemite Station. Donald W. Olson, Celestial Sleuth, Using Astronomy to Solve Mysteries in Art, History and Literature (New York and Heidelberg: Springer Praxis Books, 2014 edition). I highly recommend this book and will always be indebted to Dr. Olson for his unique research on the photographs of Ansel Adams.
37 Ansel Adams to Alfred Stieglitz, September 21, 1937, ibid., 98.
38 Sarah Greenough, ed., My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz, Volume I, 1915–1933 (New Haven:Yale University Press, 2011); Roxana Robinson, Georgia O’Keeffe: A Life (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1989), 406–429.
39 Ansel Adams to Alfred Stieglitz, September 21, 1937, in M. Alinder and Stillman, Letters and Images, 98.
40 Ansel Adams to Patsy English, September 22, 1937, CCP.
41 Robinson, Georgia O’Keeffe, 417.
42 Ansel Adams, Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs (Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1983), 152–157. Georgia O’Keeffe and Orville Cox is reproduced on page 152.
43 The 35mm proof sheet is reproduced in M. Alinder and Stillman, Letters and Images, 99.
44 Ansel Adams, Aspens, Dawn, Dolores River Canyon, Ansel Adams with Mary Street Alinder, Ansel Adams: An Autobiography (Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1985), 196, 234.
45 Georgia O’Keeffe to William Einstein, July 19, 1938, in Jack Coward and Juan Hamilton, with letters selected and annotated by Sarah Greenough, Georgia O’Keeffe: Art and Letters (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1987), 224, 226.
46 Ansel Adams to David McAlpin, April 4, 1938, CCP.
47 Ansel Adams to Alfred Stieglitz, March 15, 1938, CCP.
48 Nancy Newhall, “The Enduring Moment” [unpublished manuscript draft for the proposed second volume of her biography of Ansel Adams], 145. Beaumont Newhall provided the author with a copy of the manuscript.
49 Ansel Adams to David McAlpin, July 11, 1938, in M. A
linder and Stillman, Letters and Images, 104–107.
50 N. Newhall, Eloquent Light, 154.
51 Michael Robertson, “Beaux Arts Ball: Time to Celebrate City’s Life and Joy,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 7, 1989.
52 N. Newhall, Eloquent Light, 150.
53 “Architectural Masquerade,” Northern California Home & Garden, November 1990, 48–50.
54 N. Newhall, Eloquent Light, 150.
55 A. Adams with M. Alinder, Autobiography, 185.
56 Handwritten notes by Nancy Newhall for The Eloquent Light, CCP.
57 Ansel Adams to Alfred Stieglitz, July 30, 1938, CCP.
58 Ansel Adams to Georgia O’Keeffe, July 30, 1938, CCP.
59 Ansel Adams to Patsy English, July 13, 1938, CCP.
60 David Hunter McAlpin, “Photographic Experiences with Ansel Adams,” in Ansel Adams, Singular Images (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1974), unpaginated.
61 Ansel Adams to Alfred Stieglitz, September 10, 1938, in M. Alinder and Stillman, Letters and Images, 107–108.
62 A. Adams with M. Alinder, Autobiography, 228–230.
63 McAlpin, “Photographic Experiences with Ansel Adams.”
64 A. Adams with M. Alinder, Autobiography, 229–230.
65 Ibid., 231.
66 N. Newhall, Eloquent Light, 163.
67 Ansel Adams, “Conversations with Ansel Adams,” an oral history conducted 1972, 1974, 1975 by Ruth Teiser and Catherine Harroun, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1978, 570.
68 “Ansel Adams Speaks at League!” photo notes (Photo League, December 1940), 3.
69 Ansel Adams, “Letter to the Editor,” U.S. Camera 11 (October 1940): 9.
70 Ansel Adams to Georgia O’Keeffe, November 11, 1938, CCP; Ansel Adams to Edward Weston [November 1938], CCP; Ansel Adams to David McAlpin, November 4, 1938, CCP.
71 N. Newhall, Eloquent Light, 162.
72 Wilder Bentley, “Photography and the Fine Book,” U.S. Camera 14 (February 1941): 67–68, 72.
73 Ansel Adams, Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail (Boston: Little, Brown, 2006). A deluxe edition of five hundred copies was also released at this time, priced at $1,250. The reproductions have been cut out and tipped onto each page, as in the original volume.