Ansel Adams Read online

  With some trepidation, the Newhalls identified themselves, and the sartorially mismatched trio set off for lunch at the Café St. Denis: Beaumont dressed in tweeds, Nancy in a stylish suit, hat, and heels, and Ansel wearing his black cowboy hat pulled low on his forehead, his tripod bouncing off the sidewalk with each step. The lunch proved a lovely beginning, with nonstop talk about photography oiled by a few drinks, the atmosphere companionably thick with smoke from all three’s cigarettes. The friendship between Beaumont and Nancy and Ansel, and the projects it was to inspire, would become the most significant of their professional lives.

  Ansel was in New York to attend the opening of MoMA’s new building at 11 West Fifty-third Street and its inaugural exhibition, Art in Our Time. Beaumont was the curator for the photographic portion, dubbed “Seven Americans,” featuring photographers who had begun working in the past twenty years: Berenice Abbott, Ansel Adams, Harold Edgerton, Walker Evans, Man Ray, Ralph Steiner, and Brett Weston.12

  After lunch, Beaumont shepherded Ansel through the show, and Nancy returned to their apartment to work on an essay on modern American architecture. At about four, Nancy’s phone rang, and the caller identified herself as Georgia O’Keeffe. Nancy’s heart almost stopped: O’Keeffe was her favorite painter. O’Keeffe coolly asked Nancy, whom she addressed as Mrs. Newhall, to inform Beaumont and Ansel that they were invited for cocktails, adding that Nancy was not invited because she was simply a wife. Nancy reacted humbly. She delivered the message to Beaumont and Ansel and returned to her writing.13

  Ansel and Beaumont happily accepted O’Keeffe’s invitation and arrived to find McAlpin rounding out the group of five. Over drinks, McAlpin suggested that they have supper at his club, the River House, after which he announced that he had rented a speedboat to whisk them to the newly opened World’s Fair. Stieglitz declined and returned home to bed, but O’Keeffe and her three escorts sallied forth. As they approached the site, fireworks embroidered the sky, lighting their upturned faces, each filled with anticipation.

  When they got to the fair, O’Keeffe and McAlpin settled into rolling chairs to tour the grounds, but Ansel and Beaumont would have none of that. They scampered ahead, behind and at the sides of the chairs, egging each other on with acrobatic leaps and twists and impromptu races.14 The sillier one acted, the crazier the other became. Ansel had thought Beaumont a staid New Englander, but found that he was instead the Heckle to his Jeckle. Their friendship, although based on photography, was strengthened by their mutual love of fun, which made it easy for them to have a good time when they were together. Before that night they had respected each other; now they trusted each other, each an only child finding his true brother.

  During that full month of May that Ansel spent in New York, he discovered that “that man from the museum,” as Stieglitz described Beaumont, had flaws other than his admiration of Moholy. Although he was flattered that eight of his photographs had been included in the total of fifty-three for “Seven Americans,” he did not like Beaumont’s installation, which displayed each photographer’s work on a different-colored panel. To Ansel’s eye, the colors warred with the images rather than set them off, as had the pale-gray walls at An American Place. Beaumont defended his presentation, arguing that the museum was an experimental laboratory on behalf of art—and besides, he asked, didn’t Ansel find black-and-white photographs on white walls boring?15 No.

  Ansel was not the only photographer to question Beaumont’s installation. Walker Evans was so upset that his work was to be placed on a red panel that he threatened to remove his photographs from the show unless Beaumont let him present them himself. Beaumont agreed, and Evans mounted each of his prints on a very large white mount board that covered up every bit of red.16

  Evans was a photographic presence to reckon with. One of the platoon of photographers who worked for the Farm Security Administration during the Depression, Evans unemotionally documented rural America, placing his unflinching camera lens directly before each subject, be it a billboard, an old house, or a farmer in overalls.17

  In 1938, when another and much larger solo show by Evans opened at MoMA, Ansel took offense.18 Perhaps causing his ire was the fact that he and Evans were the same age, and it was Evans who first got the big museum show. Ansel had been honored by Stieglitz with a solo exhibition, and Stieglitz had no use for Evans. Like Ansel, Evans counted Paul Strand among his greatest influences. Evans had been deeply affected by Strand’s subject matter, in particular a photograph of a blind woman with a crude sign hung around her neck.19 Ansel never talked about Strand’s subject matter; rather, he revered Strand’s technique and composition.

  Ansel returned to California in mid-June 1939 and a summer lineup of commercial jobs, as well as preparations for a solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, scheduled to open on September 19. Ansel was eager to play to his own home crowd, writing to both Stieglitz and McAlpin that until this show, he had been a prophet ignored in his own land.20

  Fortune magazine commissioned him to do two stories, one on the Del Monte Forest in Monterey and the other on the Pacific Gas & Electric Company. Ansel traveled fifteen hundred miles to fulfill these assignments; on his return he shipped off 120 prints, more than enough for two major picture stories. The magazine was known to pay handsomely, and he awaited the check that he expected would support him for three or four months.21 As can be typical in such situations, however, Fortune chose to use only a few images, for which Ansel finally received two hundred dollars.22

  That summer, Ansel also photographed both the new Patent Leather Bar at the Saint Francis Hotel and Picasso’s Guernica (temporarily on view in San Francisco) and produced a photographic portfolio of the murals of Maurice Sterne (one of Mabel Dodge Luhan’s exes) and another of the sculpture of Benny Bufano.

  For years now, Virginia had played only a minor supporting role in Ansel’s life. Responding to her complaints, he decided to develop some joint projects for the two of them. They began work on a children’s book, with photographs by Ansel and text by Virginia, that took as its subject their own children. Michael and Anne in the Yosemite Valley was published in 1941.23 The book shares an idyllic day in the life of six-year-old Michael and four-year-old Anne, who live in Yosemite Valley, where they play Indians, see deer, birds, and bear, and visit a newborn colt. At the end of the day, their faces scrubbed and shining, seated at their formally appointed dining room table (set with candles, crystal salt and pepper shakers, and ashtray, the salad course before them, and two Ritz crackers on each bread plate), they are invited by their daddy to join him on a camping trip to Tenaya Lake. Dreaming of the High Sierra, they fall asleep as a full moon rises over the valley.

  Virginia and Ansel also combined their talents to create the Illustrated Guide to Yosemite Valley, which was first published in 1940 but proved so popular that updated editions continued to be released through 1963.24 Containing everything from the geologic history of Yosemite to detailed accounts of roads and trails, illustrated with Ansel’s photographs and clear, graphic maps, the book enabled the newcomer to discover Yosemite through the experience of the Adamses.

  Working with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on his autumn 1939 show proved a real challenge for Ansel. Learning that the exhibition had been assigned the usual corridor space reserved for photography, Ansel made a scene: either they gave him a proper gallery, or the exhibition was off. The museum capitulated.25 He had to raise another ruckus before the museum agreed to purchase glass in the same size as his prints; it intended to use the odd sizes it had on hand. The problem was not resolved until Ansel contributed half the money. He also had to pay for the announcements, but he could not afford a catalog.

  Acting as his own curator, Ansel planned this show as a retrospective of his work over the past few years, titling it Recent Photography of Ansel Adams. He opened the exhibit with a mural of a tombstone carved with a hand whose index finger pointed heavenward or, in this case, toward a Stieglitz quote stenci
led on the wall, “Wherever there is light one can photograph.” Next hung a selection of New England images that he had made while photographing with McAlpin, then some photographs of Sierra mining towns. Only eleven images were Yosemite landscapes.26 Clearly, Stieglitz’s web still held Ansel tightly as he chose pictures along the same lines as those he had shown at An American Place three years earlier.

  On the evidence of this exhibition, Alfred Frankenstein, the esteemed art critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, declared the city’s native son a living master.27 Having heard similar raves from the press in New York and Chicago, Ansel happily received the local accolades as long overdue.

  That fall of 1939, Tom Maloney came from New York to visit Ansel in San Francisco. As publisher of U.S. Camera magazine—the biggest, glossiest, and most popular photo magazine of the day—Maloney had his fingers in many photographic pies. Ansel drove him down to Carmel to meet Edward, with terrific results: Maloney agreed to publish a book of Edward’s Guggenheim photographs, with text by Charis, to be called California and the West.

  Talking his customary mile a minute, Maloney also made some deals with Ansel. He appointed him an editor of U.S. Camera, along with Edward Steichen, Paul Outerbridge, and Anton Bruehl, and offered to sponsor Yosemite photographic workshops under Ansel’s direction.

  Maloney had something else in the works as well. The year before, in 1938, San Francisco announced the two-year-long Golden Gate International Exposition to celebrate the completion of the city’s two great bridges, the Golden Gate and the Oakland Bay.28 The 1939 version of the fair boasted a huge fine-arts section, but to Ansel’s dismay, fine photography was ignored. (The huge murals he had made for the fair in 1938 had been in the service of illustration.) Maloney now threw his weight behind the initiative to include a major photography exhibition in 1940.

  In early April 1940, Ansel received a phone call from the head of fine arts for the fair, who offered him a position as director of the photography exhibition. With the title came six galleries, sixteen hundred dollars, and a secretary, “a very attractive Italian girl who spells ‘f’ with a ‘ph.’”29 Ansel leapt at the chance.

  Proper stationery was always an Adams priority, and by April 15 his letterhead was ready, announcing a pageant of photography and ansel adams director below it in smaller type. Opening day was set for May 25. Ansel had just five and a half weeks to mount a massive and, he hoped, important show.

  Emulating Beaumont’s exhibition scheme for Photography 1839–1937, Ansel organized the six galleries thematically: History of Photography; Technological Photography; Color Photography; Contemporary Photography—American; Contemporary Photography—California; and History of the American Movie (the only section he did not curate). The inclusion of a gallery of Technological Photography did not exactly square with his campaign to establish photography as a fine art, but Ansel had been influenced in this matter by Beaumont. The addition of non-art photography, although in a separate section, was one of Beaumont’s consistent curatorial choices throughout his career.

  Pulling this show off in such a short time, Ansel knew, would require a prodigious amount of work. First he contacted his mentor, praying for a coup, but Stieglitz declined to send his photographs even after Ansel implored him, “God, Stieglitz, this is the chance to do something. I’ll paint the gallery any way you say. We have guards; it’ll be perfectly safe. And if you’d only—”30

  It certainly helped that Ansel was friends with almost all the photographers he invited, because it was asking a lot to expect exhibition-quality prints to be shipped to him on such short notice. Edward Weston, Paul Strand, and, surprisingly, Moholy-Nagy all came through. Ansel still did not like Moholy’s photographs, but he knew they were considered important by the art establishment.31

  Ansel was forever proud of A Pageant of Photography. Forty-two years later, he remembered, “Boy that was an awful hard job, but it was a contribution, and that’s what brought, for the first time, photography in many of its approaches, to the attention of the people in the West.”32 Indeed, millions viewed the exhibition—which was millions more than had seen Beaumont’s own Photography 1839–1937 during its San Francisco run.33

  Ansel dedicated the exhibition’s handsome catalog (which modestly contained only one image by its curator) “To Alfred Stieglitz who has devoted his strength and spirit to the advancement of photography.” One major snafu occurred in printing the catalog: in Beaumont’s essay, “Photography as an Art,” a few lines were inadvertently dropped, so that instead of reading,

  Alfred Stieglitz received his first medal from Emerson. He too discovered that photography has its limitations. Instead of accepting defeat, he has for over fifty years been promoting photography, trying to understand it and then overcoming the problems of photographic reproduction.

  the catalog actually read,

  Alfred Stieglitz received his first medal from Emerson. He too discovered that photography has its limitations. Instead of accepting defeat, he has for over fifty years been overcoming reproduction.34

  In New York, Beaumont opened his newly arrived copy of the catalog and settled down for a good read. A jolt coursed through him as he caught the error. He knew that he must go to Stieglitz immediately, before he read it for himself, and explain that it was a mistake and not in his original text. Very straightforwardly, he told Stieglitz, “A colossal mistake has been made. I can’t blame Adams, although he was responsible for the book and the printer. But look, I want to show it to you before you find it.” After reading it, Stieglitz calmly replied, “You know, I think that’s a very fine statement. Perfectly true. Perfectly true.”35 It was a rare indication that Stieglitz actually possessed a sense of humor.

  Although deeply embarrassed by this mistake, Ansel kept its importance in perspective. He remembered a historical precedent at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, where the description of the Brazilian Pavilion in the catalog had instructed readers to “Go into the patio and enjoy coffee and mate.” The crucial acute accent in the name of the beverage maté had been omitted.36

  The realities of day-to-day life continued in Yosemite. Best’s Studio was not thriving; with war in the air, few people traveled, most preferring to stay close to home. In 1940, two other businesses competed with Best’s for the same market for photographic supplies, print finishing, and print sales: Yosemite Falls Studio and Boysen Studio.37

  On each of his trips east, Ansel had visited Washington, D.C., to meet with officials in the National Park Service, building friendships and security for Best’s Studio’s continued status as a concession. Confident of the regard in which he was held in Washington, back home in California, Ansel fired off stinging letters of criticism about decisions that he felt compromised Yosemite’s integrity: stringing power lines across valley meadows, cutting additional roads through valley forests, adding more and more campgrounds to accommodate eager crowds.38 His actions upset Virginia, who could not understand how he could place Best’s future in such jeopardy by chancing the alienation of the very people from whom they needed approval.39

  The May 1940 issue of U.S. Camera carried a full twelve pages promoting the U.S. Camera Yosemite Photographic Forum, to be held that summer under the personal direction of Ansel Adams. Next to a full-page portrait of Ansel’s face, deep laugh lines already etched about his eyes, a caption claimed, “Ansel Adams is not only one of America’s great photographers, he is also one of the few who can lucidly present his experience and ability in a way that makes him a great photographic teacher.”40 It was all true.

  Assisting Ansel would be such photographic luminaries as Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Charles Kerlee (a photo-illustrator), and Rex Hardy, Jr. (a photographer for Life). The cost of the workshop, not including room and board, was fifty dollars for one week, eighty-five for two, or all four weeks for $150.

  But as Virginia, from her position as owner/manager of Best’s Studios, could probably have told them, Americans were not traveling. Even with the prom
ise of such a star-studded faculty, only twelve participants signed up. The workshops proceeded in abbreviated form: only Ansel and Edward taught, with Charis serving as the photographic model.

  The same summer, Nancy and Beaumont Newhall decided to vacation in California.41 After a grueling cross-country train trip without benefit of sleeper seats, they arrived, unbathed (both) and unshaven (Beaumont), in San Francisco. They told their taxi driver that they needed a hotel, and it must have a bath. The place where he deposited them was scruffy-looking, but at least it had hot running water.

  After making themselves presentable, which for Nancy meant donning a snappy white suit and broad-brimmed straw hat, they telephoned Ansel at Skyline 1-1282—a fitting exchange name, they thought. When they told him they had already checked into a hotel and gave him their address, he shrieked at them to stay put until he could get there.42 They had landed in a notorious brothel, and Ansel feared for their lives. He drove down in his new Pontiac station wagon, scooped up the Newhalls and their luggage, and took them to the Saint Francis.

  Ansel appointed himself their tour guide and bodyguard, convinced these New Yorkers were babes in the woods in his particular forest. He took them home to meet the family: Virginia, Michael, Anne, and, next door, Charlie, Ollie, and Aunt Mary. They had cocktails at the Top of the Mark and watched the fog creep in through the Golden Gate, cloaking the city beneath them as the sun set. They visited Ansel’s Pageant of Photography show and judged the content excellent but the installation rather boring: none of the brightly colored walls that they preferred, and the photographs hung à la Stieglitz, all in a line, rather than in various patterns, as Beaumont arranged images at the museum. On exhibition design they continued to be at odds with their friend.43

  Ansel escorted them down to Carmel to meet Edward and Charis, and on the way followed the slow and scenic Highway One along the coast. Just about noon, north of Santa Cruz, he pulled the car off the road and suggested that the Newhalls join him for a spate of photography. They stood on a sheer cliff that dropped cleanly to a small rocky beach below. Entranced by the white surge of surf as it moved with each wave across the dark, wet sand, Ansel tilted his four-by-five-inch camera steeply downward. Moholy’s influence had spread to Ansel, even if unconsciously.