Posts Tagged 'Beaumont Newhall'
The New Golden Decade by Steidl – Book Review
Golden Decade: Photography at the California School of Fine Arts 1945-55
By William Heick, Ira H. Latour and C. Cameron Macauley, edited by Ken Ball and Victoria Whyte Ball
The New Cover of The Golden Decade: Photography at the California School of Fine Arts 1945-55.
Cutting Edge of World Art Then, Publishing Today
A completely new, redesigned, re-edited and revised version of the Golden Decade: Photography at the California School of Fine Arts 1945-55, published by renowned photography book publisher Steidl based in Gottingen, Germany, has been selling steadily in the United States for close to a year. The new Golden Decade has already sparked glowing reviews by many major newspapers and magazines, instigated book signings at some of America's most prominent bookstore venues and catalyzed a handful of exhibitions at major museums, galleries and art centers.
This year, Steidl, the book, or the photographers have been featured in USA Today, the New Yorker and many other prominent publications. Mainstay European newspaper, The Guardian, hailed the Golden Decade as the book about "the school that turned photography into art." Beyond the Curtain, touted as Southern California's premier art and society magazine, extolled the Golden Decade photography exhibition at the Laguna Art Museum as "not for the eye to miss" and "a special glimpse into California's progressive cultural history." The Beyond the Curtain review revealed the influential ties between Golden Decade photography and the world art scene, as well as the East Coast art establishment. The article in Beyond the Curtain showed how the West Coast, specifically the California School of Fine Arts, renamed the San Francisco Art Institute, between its painters and photographers, at the time became the world's cutting edge expression of modernism.
Only five of the 35 photographers with portfolios in the book are still living, while none of the original authors William Heick, Ira H. Latour and C. Cameron Macauley are still with us. As a result, the book editors, Ken Ball and Victoria Whyte Ball are all but worn out by an extended season of bookstore events that launched at the end of last October with a book signing at The Strand in New York City and continues throughout California and other major art markets. For more about the development of the new Golden Decade at Steidl and a list of all 35 photographers see the Landscape Photography Blogger article, "The Golden Decade Book to be Published by Gerhard Steidl."
The New Golden Decade Book Versus the Old Book
Steidl's new design for the Golden Decade is less folksy and not as loaded with memorabilia, but more artful, chic, streamlined and clean, though the book still weighs in at 416 pages. The book is far from sleek, but the design on each page is sleek, spacious and crisp. The book overall is less busy and more pleasing to the eye than the earlier self-published version. A section in the beginning now tells how the book came to be, followed by the feature essay in which Ira H. Latour, in easy-reading prose tells the story of the founding of the photography department by Ansel Adams and California School of Fine Arts director Douglas MacAgy. For more on how the Golden Decade began see the blog post, "The Golden Decade: Photography at the California School of Fine Arts."
From obtaining funding through the Columbia Foundation, to securing facilities, the radio announcement, the first classes, launching the full-time program, abstract expressionism and much more, Latour's essay informs, but does not overwhelm. Ansel Adams modeled the school on a rigorous piano conservatory approach to hands-on practice and set up the curriculum based on his famous Zone System. Early on a few students complained that the advertising promised courses by Ansel Adams just as he had become scarce at the school while working on his Guggenheim project photographing the national parks. The complaining faded when Ansel Adams hired Minor White, who in turn brought in prominent photographers to teach including Dorothea Lange, Imogen Cunningham, Lisette Model, Eliot Finkels, Frederick W. Quandt, Jr., Clyde Childress from the Art Center School, Robert McAllister, Homer Page, Rose Mandel and others. Beaumont and Nancy Newhall even gave a few lectures. The most anticipated student outings were to visit Edward Weston and Brett Weston at Wildcat Hill in Carmel, as well as photography field trips with Edward Weston out to Pt. Lobos State Reserve.
Minor White taught his, at the time somewhat confusing, but later much lauded Space Analysis. Benjamin Chinn, Philip Hyde, C. Cameron Macauley and others who wrote or talked about Space Analysis each had different understandings of it, but in June of 1952, the American Annual of Photography published an article by Minor White that defined Space Analysis as simply "The Use of Space in Defining Pictures." C. Cameron Macauley's essay in the Golden Decade also has provides readers with an understandable summary. Space Analysis brought the photographer's awareness to vacant space, filled space and the relationships between objects and space, with more emphasis on the space than the objects. Students applied Space Analysis both before exposure while looking at the ground glass and after the production of a finished print.
Besides teaching portrait and landscape photography with large format cameras, White encouraged the study of motion by studying rush hour and doing street photography using "mini cameras," that is, medium format and 35 mm. He also promoted the photographic interpretation of other arts including sculpture, plays, various other forms of performance and festivals. Students photographed the lively Fillmore District, the coast along Highway 1, industrial and architectural subjects with real world assignments by Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Stanford University, the City of Mendocino, the Gold Country, ghost towns and many other locations and clients all over Northern California.
Essays By Star CSFA Students
The essays by William Heick, C. Cameron Macauley, Ira H. Latour and others illuminate all aspects of student endeavor, both the day and night classes, student social gatherings, the striking philosophical differences between Minor White and Edward Weston and between Minor White and Ansel Adams. The latter at times brought on heated classroom discussions. Latour's essay in particular offers an insightful, incisive dissecting not only of technical, creative and academic aspects of the photography program, but of the philosophy and character of both instructors and key innovative students.
Separate essays, all rearranged for better flow in this new Steidl version of the Golden Decade, also cover student print exchanges, a student print-based fundraising event, the world-famous 1954 "Perceptions" show at the San Francisco Museum of Art and the founding of Aperture magazine with several students including Philip Hyde, Benjamin Chinn and William Heick, being featured in early issues. Another essay described the students hanging out and later mounting a show at Vesuvio's Bistro in the bustle of San Francisco's North Beach District, which soon after became the home neighborhood of the Beat Generation poets. "Vesuvio's is usually crowded with painters, photographers, craftsmen and sighseers," wrote C. Cameron Macauley.
An essay by Pat Harris, "A Woman's Perspective" explained that though most of the men had just come out of Word War II and were going to art school backed by the G.I. Bill, the primarily non-veteran women enrolled in the classes had to scrape and pay for school on their own. People kept saying to Pat Harris that science was not for women at each school she attended previously, but Ansel accepted her into the photography program and with mentoring from Imogen Cunningham she thrived.
Similarities, Differences and Influences in Student Photographs
Students at the school came from diverse backgrounds and circumstances, but the similarities that ran through many of the photographs do not end at the often-evident influence of Adams, Weston and White, but begin with it and go beyond it. Emerging from World War II, the country, the world and San Francisco in particular, had tremendous creative energy and productivity, while at the same time civilization carried the weight of what it had seen and endured, moving past it with transcendence and new purpose. Aspects of all of this are evident in the photographs, as well as meanings beneath the surface in most of the images. Edward Weston said, "To photograph a rock, make it look like a rock, but be more than a rock."
The student portfolios exhibit a quiet intensity with clean lines, a new take on the modernist aesthetic, with room around subjects, objects well-placed in space, whether through space analysis or by emulating the quiet balance conveyed by Edward Weston. Many of the students' photographs exhibit a strong design element. All are carefully conceived. For more about the contemporary exhibitions of the photographs starting in 2010 see the blog post, "Over 500 People Attend Golden Decade Opening."
Ansel Adams spoke of photographs representing a spiritual experience. The Golden Decade nature photographs exemplify either subtle or more obvious post-war transcendence. The landscape photographs contain some kind of spiritual quality, either through the use of light, or the arrangement of the subjects. Symbolism, ironic juxtaposition and the careful handling of negative and positive space around objects is as important as the objects and people themselves. The influence of Minor White also shows in the patterns and psychological emphasis, sometimes on humor, sometimes on tragedy, but always giving added meaning to the images. Metaphysics often shows or is alluded to in the street and people photographs as well. Pirkle Jones, William Heick, Gerald Ratto, David Johnson and many of the others expressed their greatest artistry in their photographs of people.
The first photograph in the student portfolios, "Nun and Child" by Ruth-Marion Baruch, like many others in the book, was clearly best expressed in black and white rather than in color. The nun's habit with it's black and stark white oversized collar contrasted with various grays and off-whites of the surrounding children all framed in a dark doorway. Baruch's "Benicia" also juxtaposed innocence, optimism and the liveliness of youth in the foreground with the disappointment, unfairness and misfortune of life in the background. The images of Philip Hyde, Stan Zrnich and the other landscape photographers tended to speak of timelessness and at the same time remind us that we are here by either grace or accident and that this moment, this vivid now is fleeting. 'Gather ye photographs while ye may.' The Golden Decade shines on forever and glows golden for only one bright decade. It continues on and ended just yesterday: a book worth learning from and keeping safe for studying over and over; a time in history worth struggling to grasp and hold onto whether you are a historian, collector, photographer or artist in another medium.
Tags: Ansel Adams Aperture Magazine Art Center School Beaumont Newhall Benjamin Chinn Black and White Photography Brett Weston California California School of Fine Arts Cameron Macauley Carmel Columbia University darkroom Dorothea Lange Douglas MacAgy Edward Weston Eliot Finkels fine art photography Frederick W. Quandt Jr. Gerald Ratto Gerhard Steidl Publisher Golden Decade Group f.64 Guardian Homer Page Imogen Cunningham Ira Latour John Upton Ken Ball Laguna Art Museum landscape photography Lisette Model Mendocino Minor White Nancy Newhall National Parks New York City Pat Harris Philip Hyde Pirkle Jones Rose Mandel Ruth-Marion Baruch San Francisco San Francisco Art Institute Space Analysis Stan Zrnich Stanford University Steidl straight photography The Strand Bookstore Victoria Whyte Ball west coast tradition Wildcat Hill William Heick Zone System
Golden Decade Shows at Laguna Art Museum and Minnesota Street Project
Current Golden Decade Exhibits and Book Events
Smith Andersen North Gallery
Laguna Art Museum
Minnesota Street Project
Bankhead Theater Gallery
The Golden Decade, San Francisco, Ansel Adams, Minor White and the California School of Fine Arts History
Piers, Waterfront, San Francisco, California, 1948 by Philip Hyde. An original vintage contact silver print of this photograph was the first to sell at the first Golden Decade Show in 2010 at Smith Andersen North, attended by over 500 people. (Click on image to see large.)
Art historians, critics, gallerists, curators and museum staff have taken to calling the 10 years after World War II, 1945-1955, The Golden Decade of photography on the West Coast and elsewhere around the nation. Not only did the arts bustle and surge with energy and popularity in San Francisco and elsewhere on the West Coast during this period, but a new department of photography founded by Ansel Adams would in time have world-wide influence as it helped to transform photography into art.
The photography department at the California School of Fine Arts, renamed the San Francisco Art Institute in 1961, was the first College level art program to teach creative photography as a full-time profession. At the recommendation of Beaumont Newhall, who had earlier co-founded with Ansel Adams the first museum photography department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, Ansel Adams hired and transplanted Minor White from Princeton to San Francisco to lead instruction at the new photography program at CSFA. Read the never before published Philip Hyde notes on a number of Minor White's lectures including the famous one on Space Analysis, the notes from the Space Analysis Lecture start a short portion of a series of blog posts based on Philip Hyde's notes.
Minor White in turn invited to guest lecture some of the most influential photographers at the time including Dorothea Lange, Imogen Cunningham, Lisette Model, Nancy and Beaumont Newhall, Homer Page, Alma Lavenson and Frederick W. Quandt. The early classes at the school also took field trips down to Carmel to visit the studio of Edward Weston, now considered by many the father of modern photography. Students also photographed with Edward Weston in the field at nearby Point Lobos State Natural Reserve.
Ansel Adams taught a number of classes beginning in 1945. By 1946, Ansel Adams offered the first full-time Summer Session. Philip Hyde first attended the school and Minor White first assisted in this class. By the Fall of 1946, Minor White took over teaching and by the Fall of 1947 Philip Hyde began the full-time program, which ran three years through 1950. Read more on "The Early Days of Ansel Adams' Photography Program." Eavesdrop on a conversation with "Philip Hyde and Benjamen Chinn talking about Ansel Adams' Photography Department." Discover why "The California School of Fine Arts Makes Art History."
In subsequent years, students from the Golden Decade period put on a number of retrospective exhibitions, most of them located at the school, renamed the San Francisco Art Institute.
Contemporary Interest and Events
Interest in the photography of both students and teachers from the Golden Decade era stepped up significantly when Stephanie Comer, Deborah Klochko and Jeff Gunderson began interviewing and researching their 2006 book, "The Moment of Seeing: Minor White at the California School of Fine Art." During the lead up to their book release, in December 2005, four months before Philip Hyde passed on, David Leland Hyde took his father to a reunion lunch in San Francisco organized by Ken and Victoria Whyte Ball. At the reunion lunch classmates who had not seen each other in many years, sometimes as long as 50 years or more, exchanged stories, signed each other's prints, helped identify people in photographs, and talked of the years since photography school and the unforgettable times during photography school.
Victoria Whyte Ball is the daughter of Don Whyte, one of Philip Hyde's classmates. After the reunion lunch, Ken and Victoria Whyte Ball began to help Bill Heick, Ira Latour and Cameron Macauley edit and complete their long-planned and only partly written book called "The Golden Decade: Photography at the California School of Fine Art 1945-1955." The Golden Decade would be another retrospective volume, already many years in the making, though told more from the students' perspective. All three of the original authors lived to see a self-published version of this book come out in 2010 in conjunction with a gallery show at Smith Andersen North in San Anselmo, Marin County, California. Over 500 people attended the Golden Decade show opening and a Philip Hyde vintage print of "Piers, Waterfront, San Francisco" was the first to sell. The show was extended for an extra month to include a new closing reception and book signing.
From 2010 to 2015, there were more Golden Decade Group Exhibits and a number of shows by the individual photographers at Smith Andersen North and elsewhere. At Mumm Winery in Napa, California, the holders of a large permanent collection of original Ansel Adams prints, Mumm Napa put on a Golden Decade show in February 2014. Stefan Kirkeby, gallery owner of Smith Andersen North, who had taken a special interest in representing and helping Golden Decade photographers, put on exhibitions of photographic prints by Golden Decade artists Benjamen Chinn, Ruth-Marion Baruch and Pirkle Jones, Leonard Zielaskiewicz, Charles Wong, Paul Caponigro, Philip Hyde and John Upton. The widely acclaimed and attended Smith Andersen North show This Land Is Our Land: Philip Hyde and the American Wilderness, put together by Stefan Kirkeby and David Leland Hyde, enjoyed a turnout larger than any other show at the gallery besides the 2010 Golden Decade show.
Redesigned New Golden Decade Book Published by Steidl
During this five-year period, Ken and Victoria Whyte Ball searched for a publisher for the Golden Decade. Finally in 2015, the internationally respected premier photography book publisher Gerhard Steidl of Göttingen, Germany, decided to publish a redesigned version of the Golden Decade book. Steidl published the book in April and shipped it to the US in May of 2016.
Book signings kicked off in the US at the famous Strand bookstore in New York City on Saturday, October 29. The Strand, one of the world's most prominent English language bookstores, was established in 1927 and claims to contain 18 miles of books. From then on Steidl has kept Ken and Victoria Whyte Ball busy doing book signing events. Other Golden Decade photographers who are still alive, with us and have also attended and signed books at some signings include John Upton, Gerald Ratto, David Johnson, Stan Zrnich, Charles Wong, Stephen Goldstein and Zoe Lowenthal.
Following the book signing at the Strand in New York, the next major Golden Decade event was an opening and book signing at Smith Andersen North for Golden Decade photographer Gerald Ratto. Gerald Ratto's photography exhibit was on view from November 12 thru December 23, 2016. Many Golden Decade fans bought books and had them signed at this gallery opening.
Golden Decade Gallery and Museum Shows
In case anyone missed this show and signing, an official Golden Decade Exhibition sponsored by Smith Andersen North and Casemore Kirkeby, housed at the Minnesota Street Project in San Francisco, opened February 4 and will run until February 28, 2017. At the opening for this Minnesota Street Project show, Stefan Kirkeby, owner of Smith Andersen North and co-owner of Casemore Kirkeby, made introductory remarks and introduced Jeff Gunderson, San Francisco Art Institute Librarian and Archivist and contributor to The Moment of Seeing. After Jeff Gunderson spoke, Jack Fulton, photographer and retired SFAI professor, talked further about the history of the photography program.
Also opening this month, on February 19, a Golden Decade museum show will run through May 29, 2017 at the Laguna Art Museum. Founded in 1918, the Laguna Art Museum is the premier museum of California Art created by California artists.
On March 1, 2017 back at the photography program campus at the San Francisco Art Institute, there will be another Golden Decade book signing and presentation. Specifics on the two shows currently up and ongoing and the upcoming signing at SFAI are listed below.
The Golden Decade Exhibit
February 4 thru 28, 2017
Smith Andersen North—Casemore Kirkeby
1275 Minnesota Street
The Golden Decade: Photography at the California School of Fine Arts, 1945-1955
February 19 thru May 29, 2017
Laguna Beach, California 92651
The Golden Decade Book Signing and Panel Discussion
A Conversation with Ken and Victoria Whyte Ball, Jeff Gunderson, Stefan Kirkeby and Golden Decade Photographers John Upton, Stephen Goldstine, David Johnson, Charles Wong, Gerald Ratto and Stan Zrnich.
6 pm, March 1, 2017
The Golden Decade Art Exhibition at the Bankhead Theater Gallery
March 4 thru May 1, 2017
Book signing March 10 at 6:30-8:30 pm
Bankhead Theater
Livermore Valley Performing Arts Center
2400 First Street
Tags: Alma Lavenson Ansel Adams archival fine art digital prints Bankhead Theater Gallery Beaumont Newhall Benjamen Chinn Bill Heick Black and White Photography Black and White Prints California California School of Fine Arts Cameron Macauley Carmel Casemore Kirkeby Charles Wong darkroom David Johnson Don Whyte Dorothea Lange Edward Weston fine art photography Frederick W. Quandt gelatin silver prints Gerald Ratto Gerhard Steidl Publisher Golden Decade Imogen Cunningham Ira Latour Jack Fulton Jeff Gunderson John Upton Ken Ball Laguna Art Museum Leonard Zielaskiewicz Lisette Model Minnesota Street Project Minor White Mumm Napa Gallery Museum of Modern Art New York Nancy Newhall New York City Paul Caponigro Philip Hyde photography studio Pirkle Jones Point Lobos Princeton University Ruth-Marion Baruch San Francisco San Francisco Art Institute Sierra Nevada Smith Andersen North Gallery Stan Zrnich Stefan Kirkeby straight photography The Strand Bookstore This Land Is Our Land Victoria Whyte Ball west coast tradition
Photography and America's National Parks at the George Eastman Museum
Photography and America's National Parks Exhibition at the George Eastman Museum
June 4 – October 2, 2016
Exhibition Preview Friday June 3, 2016, 7 – 9 pm
Featuring William Henry Jackson, Carleton E. Watkins, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Philip Hyde and Contemporary Photographers
Dune at Granite Falls, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, copyright 1956 by Philip Hyde. Color version featured in Time and the River Flowing: Grand Canyon, the 1964 book that helped galvanize worldwide opposition to two proposed dams in the Grand Canyon. This photograph will be featured in Photography in America's National Parks and is part of the George Eastman Museum permanent collection. (Click on image to see larger.)
American entrepreneur George Eastman founded the Eastman Kodak Company and popularized photography through the mass production of film and the cameras he manufactured. While a number of entertainers and recording artists have more than one star in different categories on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Eastman is the only honoree with two stars in the same category for the same achievement, the invention of roll film.
Besides inventing roll film, Eastman also invented the roll film holder, developed dry plate technology that simplified the mechanics of photography and bromide paper, which became a standard in the industry. Eastman's transparent film enabled Thomas Edison to perfect the kinetoscope, a box that allowed one individual at a time to view films through a small viewer window, the forerunner of the present motion picture.
Eastman, after establishing a $200,000,000 industry, devoted most of his life to philanthropy. He pioneered sick pay, disability compensation, pensions and hospital benefits. He first distributed extra funds to employees doing a good job, one of the world's first corporate bonuses. In the last decade of the 19th Century and in the first two of the 20th, he gave away more in wealth than anyone else besides John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie.
His gifts made the University of Rochester and MIT into first tier schools. He was the largest supporter of the education of African-Americans in the 1920s, donating to colleges like Tuskegee, Hampton, Howard and Meharry. He established dental clinics for children around the globe and founded the medical and dental school at the University of Rochester. He organized community music instruction, funded music education programs and concerts and built the Eastman Theater, still one of the largest and most eloquent concert halls in the country.
After his death in 1932, his 35,000 square foot home became part of the university, but proved too large for the president's residence, as he had specified. In 1947, the state of New York chartered the George Eastman House as a non-profit museum of photography. After the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the George Eastman Museum became the second museum in the world to have a photography department and also the second museum in the world to have a film department.
The George Eastman Museum went on to develop one of the largest photography collections in the world including cinema art and photographic and cinematic technology, for a total of several million objects including over 450,000 photographs dating from the introduction of the medium in 1839 to the present. The collection also includes more than 28,000 motion picture films, one of the leading libraries of books related to photography and cinema and extensive holdings of documents and other objects related to George Eastman. Each year now the museum presents at least ten curated exhibitions. However, in the early days of the museum, shows were not as frequent.
In 1957, when Beaumont Newhall was head curator and Minor White was an assistant curator, the George Eastman Museum hosted a solo exhibition of the black and white prints of a new leading nature photographer and prolific user of Kodak paper and large format sheet film, Philip Hyde. The show consisted of 25 silver gelatin prints, three of which were purchased for the George Eastman House permanent collection.
Now in 2016, to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the founding of the National Park Service, the George Eastman Museum presents Photography and America's National Parks, an "exhibition exploring the role of photography in the development of the parks and in shaping our perception and understanding of these landscapes."
From the early pioneers such as Alvin Langdon Coburn, Frank Jay Haynes, William Henry Jackson, the Kolb Brothers, Eadweard Muybridge and Carleton Watkins to the modernists including Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Philip Hyde to contemporary photographers such as Marion Balanger, Binh Danh, Sean McFarland, Sharon Harper, Mark Klett, Abelardo Morell, David Benjamin Sherry and Byron Wolfe, exhibition curator Jamie M. Allen drew primarily from the George Eastman Museum collection to illuminate the history of the most significant national parks from the 1860s to the present. The exhibition also includes works on loan that broaden and deepen the presentation, as well as George Eastman's travel albums from his trips to national parks.
To compliment the exhibition, the museum is co-publishing a book with Aperture titled, Picturing America's National Parks, with introductory essay by Jamie M. Allen discussing the relationship between the parks and photography, available in June from the museum store and online at Eastman.org/store.
Curator Jamie M. Allen wrote an informed and well-written article about the history of photography in the national parks for the March/April issue of Antiques, The Magazine. David Leland Hyde also wrote about the exhibition for the June issue of Outdoor Photographer magazine. The same June national parks special issue of Outdoor Photographer, is graced by a cover photograph by Carr Clifton, protégé of Philip Hyde, and a special feature article by David Leland Hyde about Philip Hyde's role in conservation campaigns that helped establish or expand more national parks and wilderness lands than any other photographer. The June special issue of Outdoor Photographer will be on newsstands this Tuesday. For more information see the Exhibition Preview. To find out about related events throughout the summer go to Philip Hyde in Photography and America's National Parks Exhibition–Programs and Lectures at Fine Art Photography Collector's Resource.
George Eastman Museum
900 East Avenue
Kodak.com
Biography.com
Philanthropy Round Table Hall of Fame
Antiques, The Magazine
Outdoor Photographer magazine
Tags: 4X5 Baby Deardorff Large Format View Camera Abelardo Morell Alvin Langdon Coburn Andrew Carnegie Ansel Adams Antiques magazine Aperture Beaumont Newhall Binh Danh Black and White Photography Byron Wolfe California Carleton E. Watkins darkroom David Benjamin Sherry David Leland Hyde Eadweard Muybridge Edward Weston Frank Jay Haynes gelatin silver prints George Eastman George Eastman House Grand Canyon National Park Hollywood Walk of Fame Jamie M. Allen John D. Rockefeller Kodak Kolb Brothers large format photography Marion Balanger Mark Klett Massachusetts Institute of Technology Minor White Museum of Modern Art New York museums National Park Service National Parks New York City Outdoor Photographer Magazine Picturing America's National Parks roll film Sean McFarland Sharon Harper Thomas Edison University of Rochester William Henry Jackson
San Francisco Art Institute Photography History 17
On the Fall Program, Student Supplies and Lab Schedule
Lecture by Ansel Adams
Philip Hyde's 1947 Class Notes Notes
California School Of Fine Arts, Now The San Francisco Art Institute
Photography Program Founded By Ansel Adams, Minor White Lead Instructor
(Continued from the blog post San Francisco Art Institute Photography History 16.)
Winter Forest Near Badger Pass, Yosemite National Park, High Sierra, California, copyright 1949 by Philip Hyde from the Golden Decade book.
Below is the next in a series of excerpts from the only known existing complete student lecture notes from the photography program at the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute. During the "Golden Decade" while Minor White was lead instructor, beginning in the Ansel Adams Summer Session 1946, Philip Hyde kept a detailed record of class presentations.
A new book, Golden Decade: Photography at the California School of Fine Arts 1945-1955 by William Heick, Ira Latour, Ken Ball and Victoria Ball will be published June 2016 by Steidl of Germany with a small text contribution by David Leland Hyde and photographs by Philip Hyde, his classmates and other students during the era.
For the California School of Fine Arts Summer Session 1946, Ansel Adams brought in Minor White from Columbia University on recommendation from Beaumont and Nancy Newhall. In the 1946 Summer Session Minor White quickly proved himself as a coach of the young students and as a guest lecturer. Within a few weeks Ansel Adams felt confident enough in Minor White's teaching abilities to leave him in charge of the class and set out on the road to photograph the national parks for his recently awarded Guggenheim Fellowship.
Today, the San Francisco Art Institute still has one of the world's most cutting edge photography departments, however, in 1945-1955, the first ten years of the program made history as Minor White brought in Imogen Cunningham, Lisette Model, Dorothea Lange, and many other luminaries to guest lecture. Each semester Minor White also took the students on numerous field trips, the highlight of which was a visit to Wildcat Hill in Carmel to discuss the art and craft of photography, look at prints by Edward Weston and photograph with him out on Point Lobos State Natural Reserve.
Ansel Adams first taught the Summer Session in 1945. In the summer of 1946, Minor White joined him as a teacher and at the same time, Philip Hyde joined them as an early student. Due to an office paperwork error, Philip Hyde did not start in the first full-time class in 1946, but started in the second full-time class in the Fall of 1947. The extra year on the waiting list did not go to waste, however as Philip Hyde also used his G. I. Bill Veteran's education benefits at U. C. Berkeley to take a number of art and design courses, including classes by the famous Japanese-American painter Chiura Obata. By this lecture in August 1947, Hyde had just been married to Ardis King in June of 1947, whom he met at a New Year's party in San Francisco at the end of 1945 and got to know in the year at U. C. Berkeley before he attended the full-time photography program in the Fall of 1947. Philip Hyde's notes quoted below are from a lecture where Ansel Adams outlined the Summer Session and Fall Full-Time 1947 program courses, lab schedule and supplies needed.
Philip Hyde's Lecture Notes—August, 1947
Each student will be in a conference group for attending museum and lecture events.
Program – August 18-22
Morning Introduction
Afternoon Design, Society and Artist with Ernest Mundt [School Director]
Morning Lecture—Minor White
Afternoon Lecture—Ansel Adams
Afternoon Design, Society and Artist
Morning Lecture, Field Trip—Minor White
Afternoon Lab
Morning Lab
Lab Schedule Summer and Fall
[1st Year Student = 1; 2nd Year Student = 2]
Time Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs. Fri. Sat.
9 am – 12 noon 2 2 1 2 1 open
1 pm – 4 pm 2 1 2 1 2 open
4 pm – 7 pm 1 1 1 1 1
7 pm – 10 pm 1 1 open 1 open
Also for 1st Year Students – Darkroom #6 – Mondays 4 pm – 7 pm, Fridays 9 am – 12 noon
Supplies for Student Purchase
Isopan Cut Film
Super XX Cut Film
1 pound of Metol
1 lb. Hydroquinone
4 oz. Amidol
1 lb. Glacial Acetic Acid
1 gallon of Acid Hypo
Gross 8X10 Dry Mount Tissue
1 lb. Kodalk
1 qt. Kodak Selenium Toner
8X10 Printing Paper Contrasts—1, 2, 3 Cykora #2, Glossy #3
1 Exposure Record
1 Eastman Spotting Colors
Photo Course Worksheets
Spotting Brushes
Glassine Envelopes
Mount Boards
Interesting how many large format film photography supplies are now replaced by electronics and computers… Any thoughts on traditional processes, darkroom printing, art schools or another aspect of these notes?
(Continued in the blog post San Francisco Art Institute Photography History 18.)
Posted in Photography History
Tags: 4X5 Baby Deardorff Large Format View Camera Ansel Adams archival fine art digital prints Ardis Hyde Beaumont Newhall Black and White Photography California California School of Fine Arts Carmel Chiura Obata darkroom David Leland Hyde Dorothea Lange Edward Weston Ernest Mundt film photography G. I. Bill Gerhard Steidl Publisher Golden Decade Imogen Cunningham Ira Latour Ken Ball Kodak landscape photography Lisette Model Minor White Nancy Newhall National Parks Philip Hyde Point Lobos San Francisco San Francisco Art Institute Sierra Nevada straight photography University of California Berkeley Victoria Ball west coast tradition Wildcat Hill William Heick Yosemite National Park
Philip Hyde in "Ansel Adams: Before and After" at the Booth Western Art Museum
Ansel Adams Before and After
Exhibition at the Booth Western Art Museum
Over 400 People Attended the SOLD OUT Opening Reception…
Aspens, San Miguel River, San Juan Rockies, Colorado, 1974 by Philip Hyde. Courtesy of Lumiere Gallery.
In 2010, the second largest museum in Georgia, the Booth Western Art Museum, hosted an exhibition called Ansel Adams: A Legacy. This show attained a new milestone in attendance and helped the Booth establish creative photography as an important part of its future with the associated creation of the Booth Photography Guild.
The Booth Western Art Museum, affiliated with the Smithsonian Institute Museums in Washington DC, now presents a new exhibition, Ansel Adams: Before and After, which has already set new precedents in several ways. The outside marketing and publicity by photographers, galleries and other associates for Ansel Adams: Before and After was dark for the first 30 days. The Booth wanted to see how its own community would respond to museum originated outreach.
From the show text:
Exhibition Opening Reception and Lecture SOLD OUT!
On Saturday, November 14, 2015, over 400 people sat in awe of Dr. Michael Adams, son of legendary photographer, Ansel Adams, as he gave the keynote speech for the opening of Ansel Adams: Before and After. Many of the attendees had the opportunity to hear from contemporary photographers Cara Weston and Bob Kolbrener, who are both highlighted in the exhibition.
The Booth Western Art Museum sold $10.00 tickets to the show opening and could not fit any more people into the facility. The Booth written materials also refer to Ansel Adams as the most recognized name in photography. Ansel Adams is not only the most recognized name in photography, but the most recognized western photographer in Georgia and other southern and eastern states. The new Booth show is helping to change that though because besides exhibiting more than 25 original photographs by Ansel Adams, the more than 100 total works in the show "represent 24 photographers who influenced Ansel Adams, worked at the same time as his peers, or are contemporary artists and professional image makers who have been influenced by his legacy."
The Influence of Ansel Adams
Ansel Adam's influence on the entire medium of photography continues to show up in imagery today. Furthermore, those who worked with him cite him as one of their most significant influences. Having co-founded with Beaumont Newhall the world's first photography department in a major museum at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and having founded the first photography department in an art school to teach creative photography as a full-time profession at the California School of Fine Art, now the San Francisco Art Institute, Ansel Adams with more students than any other photographer in history, has influenced photography more than any other single photographer.
The exhibition also shows how photographers influenced by Ansel Adams, such as Philip Hyde, have influenced others. Ansel Adams was a teacher of teachers. "Aspens, San Miguel River, Rocky Mountains, Colorado" by Philip Hyde shows Ansel Adams' influence, while "Spot Lit Trees II, Yosemite, California" by Robert Weingarten is reminiscent of Philip Hyde's aspen image. Considering that Philip Hyde led some of the earliest color Ansel Adams Workshops and Robert Weingarten participated as a student and a teacher in his own right with the Ansel Adams Workshops, these and other influences had plenty of fertile opportunities to develop.
How Modernism Began in Photography
Curators and art critics have called Edward Weston the father of modern photography. As co-founder of Group f64 with Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham and Dorothea Lange, also part of the current Booth exhibit Ansel Adams: Before and After, Edward Weston and Ansel Adams were the spiritual leaders of the group whose members found themselves all moving away from pictorialism around the same time in the early 1930s. In the early part of the 20th Century, photographers practicing pictorialism using various techniques in lighting and soft focus and other effects to make photographs look like paintings with the intent that photography would be accepted as art and shown in museums and galleries.
With the striking example of the clean, crisp, sharp focused throughout, naturally lit images of Paul Strand, Alfred Stieglitz vocally abandoned pictorialism and embraced realism. He had the financial resources and influence in the arts to support like-minded photographers like those in Group f64 in California. Group f64, Stieglitz and Strand pioneered the modernist aesthetic in photography. Nature, natural objects, simple nudes, scenes of everyday life and people portrayed as they were found became the subjects and these were given space to breathe in compositions. Photography trailed behind some of the other arts in transitioning to modernism, but Encyclopedia Britannica defines well the rise of this revolution in the arts overall:
Modernism in the arts is a radical break with the past and the concurrent search for new forms of expression. Modernism fostered a period of experimentation in the arts from the 19th to the mid-20th Century, particularly in the years following World War I. In an era characterized by industrialization, rapid social change, and advances in science and the social sciences, Modernists felt a growing alienation incompatible with Victorian morality, optimism, and convention. New ideas in psychology, philosophy and political theory kindled a search for new modes of expression.
Photographs on Display in the Show
Ansel Adams: Before and After progresses chronologically through the work of Paul Strand, Alfred Stieglitz, Group f64, then later contemporaries and early protégés of Ansel Adams such as Brett Weston, Cole Weston, Philip Hyde, Pirkle Jones, Al Weber, Bob Kolbrener and Brett Weston's daughter Cara Weston, who knew Ansel Adams growing up. Finally, contemporary photographers in the show who were influenced by Ansel Adams include Robert Weingarten, Julieanne Kost, Rex Naden, Robert Glenn Ketchum, Peter Essick, John Mariana, Jay Dusard, Tim Barnwell and others. The exhibition contains two to four photographs by each photographer.
The three photographs in the show by Philip Hyde are "Aspens, San Miguel River, Rocky Mountains, Colorado," "Great Overhang, Moqui Canyon, Glen Canyon, Utah" and "Marble Gorge, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona," all by courtesy of Lumiere Gallery. Philip Hyde made "Great Overhang, Moqui Canyon" in 1964, the year Glen Canyon Dam began to back up "Lake" Powell. "Marble Gorge, Grand Canyon" appeared in the book Navajo Wildlands in the Sierra Club Exhibit Format Series, started by Ansel Adams, Nancy Newhall and David Brower, that popularized the coffee table photography book. This series more than any other photography books, exhibited the new look of modernism in photography and helped in the campaigns to make many of America's national parks.
Welcome to the Booth Western Art Museum
The Booth Western Art Museum is the ideal venue for Ansel Adams: Before and After, offering plenty of space for such an overwhelmingly popular show and accompanying series of lectures. Besides the SOLD OUT Opening Reception and Lecture, on Saturday January 9, 2016, the Booth will host a Workshop and Evening Lecture with on how Ansel Adams might have used Photoshop. On Saturday, January 23, 2016, contemporary photographers featured in the exhibition will participate in a Symposium with Scholars. Details of the four sessions of this event are below.
The Booth Western Art Museum, opened in August 2003, is the only museum of its kind in the Southeast. With its 120,000 square foot building, The Booth houses the largest permanent exhibition space for Western American art in the country. Permanent galleries include: American West Gallery, Cowboy Gallery, Face of the West, Heading West, The Modern West, Sagebrush Ranch, James and Carolyn Millar Presidential Gallery, War is Hell, and a two-story Sculpture Court. There is also a Temporary Exhibition Gallery, a Special Exhibition Gallery and the Bergman Theatre Lobby Gallery, as well as two theaters, a café, a ballroom, museum store, a reference library and one of only two glass elevators in the country with historical balance weights.
Ongoing Related Events and Activities
Exhibition Opening Reception and Lecture SOLD OUT! (Over 400 people attended.)
Dr. Michael Adams, son of Ansel Adams
Workshop and Evening Lecture
Ms. Julieanne Kost, Adobe Systems, Inc.
Symposium with Scholars and Photographers in the Exhibition
Opening Session: The People Behind the Pictures
Bob Yellowlees, moderator and Meg Partridge, photography scholar and filmmaker
Second Session: Archiving Americana a Face at a Time
Seth Hopkins, moderator, photographers Jay Dusard and Tim Barnwell
Third Session: Landscape Photography and Public Policy
Seth Hopkins with photographers Bob Kolbrener, Peter Essick and Robert Glenn Ketchum
Fourth Session: Photography in the 21st Century
Bob Yellowlees with photographers Rex Naden and John Mariana
The Booth Western Art Museum
501 Museum Drive
Cartersville, Georgia 30120
www.boothmuseum.org
Tags: 4X5 Baby Deardorff Large Format View Camera Al Weber Alfred Stieglitz Ansel Adams Ansel Adams Workshops archival fine art digital prints Arizona Beaumont Newhall Bob Kolbrenner Booth Western Art Museum Brett Weston California California School of Fine Arts Cara Weston Cole Weston Colorado David Brower desert landscapes Dorothea Lange Edward Weston fine art photography Georgia Glen Canyon Group f.64 Imogen Cunningham Jay Dusard Julieanne Kost Lake Powell Michael & Jeanne Adams Modernism modernist photography mountain landscapes Museum of Modern Art New York Nancy Newhall National Parks Paul Strand Peter Essick Philip Hyde Photoshop pictorialism Pirkle Jones Robert Glenn Ketchum Robert Weingarten Robert Yellowlees Rocky Mountains San Francisco San Francisco Art Institute Sierra Club Sierra Club Books Exhibit Format Series straight photography Utah west coast tradition wilderness
Reciprocity Failure
Introduction And Philip Hyde Lecture Notes
(Continued from the blog post, "San Francisco Art Institute Photography History 15.")
Sunken Car, Sausalito, Marin County, Alcatraz In Distance, San Francisco Bay, California, copyright 1948 by Philip Hyde. Made during photography school.
No other known set exists of complete student lecture notes from the first ten years of the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute. During the "Golden Decade," directly after World War II, while Minor White was lead instructor, beginning in the Summer Session 1947, Philip Hyde took detailed class notes. These notes are what make up the core of a good number of entries in this series of blog articles on the history of the San Francisco Art Institute's photography department.
Background And Founding Of The World's First Professional Creative Photography Training
Minor White and Philip Hyde both attended their first Ansel Adams lecture on the same day at the start of the California School of Fine Arts Summer Session 1946. Ansel Adams brought in Minor White with the idea he would take Ansel Adams' place as lead instructor. Minor White came directly from Columbia University on Beaumont and Nancy Newhall's recommendation. In the 1946 Summer Session Minor White quickly proved himself as a coach of the young students and as a guest lecturer. Within a few weeks Ansel Adams felt confident enough in Minor White's teaching abilities to leave him in charge of the class and set out on the road to photograph the national parks for his recently awarded Guggenheim Fellowship.
That Fall, Minor White also led the first class of full-time students in the world's first academic full-time creative photography program. By Fall of 1947, a new crop of first year students began learning from Minor White at the California School of Fine Arts, renamed the San Francisco Art Institute in 1961. The San Francisco Art Institute still has one of the world's most innovative photography departments, but the first ten years of the program, now called the Golden Decade, are the stuff of legend with guest lectures arranged by Minor White that included such photographic luminaries as Imogen Cunningham, Lissette Model, Dorothea Lange, and many others; as well as the highlight of each semester: a field trip to Wildcat Hill in Carmel to visit Edward Weston, complete with a field walk with him out on Point Lobos State Natural Reserve.
Ansel Adams first taught the photography Summer Session in 1945. Minor White joined him teaching in 1946. Philip Hyde started as a student at the same time, but due to an office paperwork error, did not make the list to attend the first full-time class in Fall 1946, but began photography school in the second full-time class in Fall 1947. The Summer Session 1947 featured lectures by both Adams and White. Philip Hyde's lecture notes begin in the Summer Session 1947. Philip Hyde proved to be one of the most eager students, despite his full personal life.
On June 29, 1947, Philip Hyde married Ardis King in Berkeley. Ardis King's family was from Sacramento, but her parents owned a house in Berkeley, where she and her brother Clint King lived while attending the University of California Berkeley. Philip and Ardis got to know each other while attending classes at UC Berkeley, where Ardis earned her teaching credential. They took a number of classes together, including a course in Calligraphy and Japanese Painting by the famous Japanese-American artist Chiura Obata. More on these classes and their influence on the Hydes in future blog posts.
Reciprocity Failure Defined
Following Minor White's lecture on The Technical Aspects of Visualization on August 19, 1947, Ansel Adams came before the class and held forth on Reciprocity Failure for the next two days. Most of the lecture contents were too technical to reproduce here, with many graphs depicting film densities and sensitometry readings.
Reciprocity failure oversimplified, results in the failure of film to show accurate and unflawed detail in shadows. While the subject may seem dry in some ways, it is an important concept in straight photography where the values of clarity, sharpness and clean rendering without artifacts and film noise are considered of utmost importance. Many photographers today in the digital age don't care about the technical aspects of photography because they don't need to in order to produce high fidelity photography. Camera technology today, if used according to the manual and a few simple rules and guidelines, does much of the work automatically, when the correct settings are chosen. However, with large format film cameras, everything had to be done manually. Ansel Adams was a stickler for all technical aspects of photography and developing a solid base of knowledge and aptitude in his students. The results speak for themselves, evident in his negatives and black and white prints, as well as the negatives and fine art prints of his students. It is precisely because of their perfection that Ansel Adams prints are some of the most sought after by collectors and considered some of the most valuable in the history of the medium.
The Film Photography Project blog gives an excellent explanation of reciprocity failure:
Whether you're using a lower speed film in daylight, trying to maximize your depth of field in a landscape, or just setting up the camera for an exposure at night, sooner or later you're going to start pushing the limits of your film's light gathering ability. As light becomes more scarce, the silver halide grains residing in your film will be less uniformly struck by photons, causing a steep drop in density after a few seconds of needed exposure. This exponentially diminishing response to low light levels is more popularly known as a film's reciprocity failure.
The Film Photography Project goes on to give examples of how different films exhibit reciprocity failure. For example, with black and white film, exposures of one or two seconds or longer will result in reduced density, that is, thin or non-existent shadow detail. With color negative film, exposures over 20 seconds cause color-shifting as different color dye layers in the film absorb light at different rates during prolonged exposure. With color slide film, exposures over five seconds result in color shifts similar to color negative film, while high color saturation slide films such as Fuji Velvia color shift to an even greater degree than lower color density films.
Ansel Adams' two-day lecture on reciprocity failure gave his students the tools to avoid reciprocity failure. Some of the technical terms and information implies previous knowledge from earlier lectures of various photographic subjects such as the Zone System. Stay tuned for a simple explanation of the Zone System in future posts in this series. These notes are presented primarily for the historical record.
Philip Hyde's Lecture Notes, August 19, 1947
Reciprocity failure—inertia of film in low intensity light—film doesn't respond to slight illumination.
Visualization and light metering—Use a long tube for the light meter to explore light readings of distant objects.
A Wratten 90 filter (tan color) for viewing—neutralizes color
Example: Greens on Kodak Verichrome Pan film drop nearly a full zone in value due to lack of green sensitivity.
All measurements for density should be above film base plus fog.
[Film base plus fog refers to the inherent density of any film before exposure. It consists of the film base plus any fog that has accumulated on the film due to subtle light exposure in handling]
For the sake of measurement and calculations, film base plus fog should not be less than 0.1 in density.
Pre-Exposure Exercise
Expose a white card for Zone II or Zone I depending on amount of exposure added. Then expose the scene normally. The units added will equal the numeric relation between zones. That is:
Zone I = 1 unit
Zone II = 2 units
Zone III = 4 units
Zone IV = 8 units
Zone V = 16 units
Zone VI = 32 units
…and so on up to Zone X
More on reciprocity failure and the Zone System in upcoming posts…
(Continued in the blog post, "San Francisco Art Institute Photography History 17.")
My impressions from this lecture and other sources, as well as my own experiences, leads me to believe that it was complicated to make good photographs with large format film cameras. When photographers take for granted how easy photography is now, I often think of my father, Philip Hyde's notes and his early training with Ansel Adams. What are your thoughts?
Tags: 4X5 Baby Deardorff Large Format View Camera Ansel Adams Ansel Adams prints Ardis Hyde Beaumont Newhall Black and White Photography California California School of Fine Arts Carmel Chiura Obata Clinton Samuel King III Columbia University darkroom Dorothea Lange Edward Weston film base plus fog fine art photography Group f.64 Guggenheim Imogen Cunningham Lissette Model Minor White Nancy Newhall National Parks Philip Hyde Point Lobos San Francisco San Francisco Art Institute straight photography UC Berkeley west coast tradition Wildcat Hill World War II Zone System
The History of Photography Collecting 1
Photography Has Proven One Of The Most Profitable And Satisfying Of All Art Forms To Collect…
While Photography as an art form has matured and found substantial space in most major museums, more people make and share photographs than ever before with the proliferation of digital cameras and camera phones. Interest in collecting photography has also grown dramatically, not to mention the value of some photographs. The art of collecting photography has followed the medium in an upward climb in popularity throughout its existence. But how did photography collecting begin? Who were the first collectors? What types of photographs were the first collected? Why were daguerreotypes so popular?
>> Read More >>
Tags: Alfred Stieglitz American Civil War Andre Kertesz Ansel Adams archival fine art digital prints August Sanders Beaumont Newhall Berenice Abbott Brassai Camera Obscura Gallery Collecting Photography Colorado D. O. Hill daguerreotypes Denver fine art photography French Masters George Eastman House Hal Gould Imogen Cunningham landscape photography Lazlo Moholy-Nagy Lee D. Witkin London Man Ray Matthew B. Brady Metropolitan Museum of Art mountain landscapes museums National Historic Landmark National Parks nature photography New York Paris Philip Hyde Philippe Halsman Robert Adamson The History of Photography Walker Evans Washington wilderness William Henry Fox Yosuf Karsh
Sierra Club Books: Exhibit Format Series 2
Sierra Club Books: Exhibit Format Series
Part Two: The Making of This Is The American Earth
(Continued from the blog post, "Sierra Club Books: Exhibit Format Series 1.")
Aspens, East Side of the Sierra Nevada off the Tioga Road near Yosemite National Park, California, copyright 1949 by Philip Hyde. A close variation on the photograph of Philip Hyde's that appears in "This Is the American Earth." Made with an 8X10 Deardorff large format view camera.
"The Exhibit Format Series put the Sierra Club on the map," Philip Hyde said in a 2004 interview. The Sierra Club Foundation, founded by David Brower, had the central purpose of operating the Sierra Club publishing program that published all Sierra Club Books and the Exhibit Format Series as it's mainstay. For more on David Brower see the blog post, "David Brower: Photographer And Environmentalist 1." The Sierra Club Books' Exhibit Format Series not only popularized the coffee table photography book, but brought an awareness of land conservation, wilderness preservation and environmental ethics into the national and eventually worldwide limelight.
The oversize photography books in the Exhibit Format Series spearheaded conservation campaigns to create Redwood National Park, North Cascades National Park, to save the Grand Canyon from two dams, to expand Canyonlands and many others causes. Photographer Ansel Adams, Museum Curator, Writer and Art Critic Nancy Newhall and Sierra Club Executive Director David Brower invented the Sierra Club Books Exhibit Format Series.
Life Magazine Photographer, Joe Munroe, interviewed David Brower in 1967 for Infinity, the magazine of the American Society of Media Photographers or ASMP, regarding the new Exhibit Format Series. Joe Munroe asked David Brower, "You've called the Sierra Club's Exhibit Format Series 'Books with a bias.' What is the central bias behind these books?"
David Brower answered:
We make it perfectly clear that we like this wild country we're portraying in our books. We want it saved and we don't want it paved, or logged, or dammed, or sprayed, or polluted. Our point is that there's only 5 or 10 percent of the country left in its un-messed-up wildness. If our economy cannot operate on the 90 or 95 percent that has already been changed, that other 5 or 10 percent won't save it; so our big effort must be in doing better with the land we're already on. We say let's pretend this 5 or 10 percent just doesn't exist, so we can save it for itself for whatever answers there are to questions we haven't learned how to ask yet. This has got to last for all the generations we expect to be aboard this planet. We'd like to have some of the wild spots left and we've been trying to stress this in several ways, one of which is through these books with an extra measure of physical size, the best of reproduction quality, and photographic and literary excellence.
This is the American Earth , the first book in the Sierra Club Books Exhibit Format Series, was a perfect example of just these attributes. This Is The American Earth offered text by Nancy Newhall and photographs primarily by Ansel Adams joined by some of his photographer friends such as Ray Atkeson, Werner Bischoff, Wynn Bullock, Henri Cartier-Bresson, William Garnett, Philip Hyde, Pirkle Jones, Eliot Porter, Edward Weston, Minor White, Cedric Wright and others. All in black and white, the book has both literary and visual eloquence unparalleled in books containing photographs.
The front flap of the Sierra Club Centennial edition published in 1992 said:
First published to acclaim in 1960, This Is The American Earth launched the Sierra Club Exhibit Format Series, creating a revolution in publishing and in conservation action and attitudes. "This Is The American Earth is one of the great statements in the history of conservation," proclaimed Justice William O. Douglas… Called "terrifying and beautiful" by the New York Times, This Is The American Earth presents eighty-five powerful black and white photographs—fourty-four by Ansel Adams and others by such eminent American photographers as Eliot Porter, Philip Hyde, Edward Weston and Margaret Bourke-White. Accompanying the images is a luminous text in blank verse by Nancy Newhall. Reprinted in rich duotones from new prints supplied by the Ansel Adams Trust, the pictures exhibit the stark contrast between those spaces forever altered by the forces of development and those left unscarred by human presence. As Nancy Newhall explores the intricate threads that unite the earth as an ever-shifting whole, and Adams exults in Yosemite's rocky peaks, and Porter reveres a single tern in flight, William Garnett despairs at waves of smog and frantic mazes of tract housing that forsake all of nature's singularity. The images, so bold in their divergence, are an eloquent call for the preservation of wilderness. This Is The American Earth compels us to ask what is the value of solitude, the cost of freedom, the legacy of our ingenuity—and the peril of our unwavering march from nature.
Ansel Adams first conceived This Is The American Earth as an exhibit of photographs, in response to the Natioal Park Service suggestion that something more functional be done with the Joseph LeConte memorial building in Yosemite Valley. Ansel Adams asked Nancy Newhall to bring in her skill with exhibits and text she gained as curator of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The exhibition that opened simultaneously at the LeConte Memorial in Yosemite Valley and at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, gained a world-wide audience through the Smithsonian Institute, while a number of prominent publishers and foundations helped the show become a book. The idea of the project was to educate the public about conservation. Ansel Adams said in brainstorming sessions with his wife Virginia Adams and Nancy Newhall later quoted in Modern Photography Magazine:
What about a show on the whole of conservation?… Clear up the confusion in people's minds, show them the issues at stake, and the dangers… Show the importance of the spiritual values as well as the material ones by making the most beautiful exhibition yet… A lot of people think Conservationists are a bunch of long-haired cranks and wild-eyed mystics. It's about time they were given a chance to understand the broad principles and the full scope for which we're fighting…
Ansel Adams raised the money to mount the exhibition himself. Nancy Newhall reviewed thousands of photographs, designed the overall concept and layout of the show and wrote the text. Beaumont and Christi Newhall's new introduction to the Sierra Club Centennial edition described how the printing and organization of the show came together:
Six photographers made their own prints [including Philip Hyde] for the show, and Ansel Adams, with the help of his assistant Pirkle Jones, made the rest from the photographer's own negatives. These images were attached to fourteen panels, each seven by four feet. Some of the photographs were mounted with spacers, making them stand out from the panels, and giving a certain visual liveliness to the show. Also displayed were natural objects and geological specimens such as butterflies, mushrooms coral, crystals, and shells, as well as small Egyptian and Greek artifacts. These objects added color, variety, a sense of life, and a sense of immediacy… Labels made from Nancy Newhall's text were placed together with the photographs where they seemed appropriate, giving the exhibition an even broader scope. Immediately, the show received an overwhelming enthusiastic response.
An article in the November 1955 issue of Modern Photography Magazine stated:
This Is the American Earth is one of the most beautiful and remarkable photographic exhibitions ever put together… Various organizations have proposed to circulate it in reproduction to every community, to make it into a movie for TV and ordinary theater showings, to publish it as a book for distribution in this country and throughout the world. Why all the excitement? There are two answers, one is the theme of the show, the other its execution. The theme stresses the need, the history, the purpose of the conservation of America's resources. The execution includes the display of some of the most penetrating and beautiful photographs ever made…
Nancy Newhall completely revised the text as the exhibition became a book, "to reflect new thinking and expansion of the original ideas." Beaumont and Christi Newhall's introduction explained:
The exhibit had focused on conservation and the "national park idea." The theme of the book is avowedly ecological and environmental. It embraces an understanding of the interrelation of all resources including man, and the need for reverence and preservation of these resources. The impassioned, poetic text also deals with the tragic effects of man's greed and ignorance throughout history upon this planet. The book was an instant success. It was chosen as one of the forty-six "Notable Books" of 1960 by the nation's librarians, and was selected Best Book of the Year by the American Institute of Graphic Arts. It was reviewed in newspapers and periodicals throughout the country, often accompanied by photographs from the book and large sections of the text.
In Ansel Adams' last living interview by Art News in 1984, he said, "…It boils down to the fact that the world is in a state of potential destruction. There's no use worrying about anything else."
(Continued in the blog post, "Sierra Club Books: Exhibit Format Series 3.")
Tags: 8X10 Deardorff Large Format View Camera Ansel Adams Ansel Adams Trust Art News ASMP Beaumont Newhall Black and White Photography California California Academy of Sciences Canyonlands National Park Cedric Wright conservation David Brower Edward Weston Eliot Porter environmental fine art photography Grand Canyon Henri Cartier-Bresson Joe Munroe landscape photography Life Margaret Bourke-White Minor White Modern Environmentalism Modern Photography Magazine Nancy Newhall National Parks New York Times North Cascades National Park Philip Hyde Pirkle Jones Ray Atkeson Redwood National Park San Francisco Sierra Club Sierra Club Books Exhibit Format Series Sierra Nevada This Is The American Earth Tioga Road Virginia Adams Werner Bischoff west coast tradition wilderness William Garnett Wynn Bullock Yosemite National Park Yosemite Valley
Art Is One of the Faiths of the World…!?
Do you agree or disagree?
Art Is One of the Faiths of the World: Minor White lectured to his third year class of photography students at the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute in May 1950. Minor White also wrote Beaumont and Nancy Newhall on how the lecture came about, as well as writing a reply to a letter from third year student Philip Hyde, who through a question in his letter to Minor White instigated the lecture topic. The original letter from Philip Hyde to Minor White has yet to be located. Philip Hyde's correspondence file with Minor White did not contain a copy. The original letter may be in the Minor White archive at Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey. For more related background on Minor White, Alfred Stieglitz, Philip Hyde, Ansel Adams and other points in the history of photography see the blog post, "Minor White–Philip Hyde Letters."
Minor White's Reply To Philip Hyde
(From Philip Hyde's correspondence file with Minor White.)
Dear Phil:
Thank you for your letter. It means much to me, just what or how is so mixed with my own life that it is hardly worth explaining – or too long an explaining, let us say. The little lecture on Monday said most of it. Art should be a faith in the world – that becomes my own aim with photography – however often I may fail.
As for yourself, you have something to give the world, now you are ready to start giving it, go ahead.
That takes the production of photographs and it takes the placing of them before people. It usually seems like a waste of time to spend the hours presenting your work, especially to one who can produce; be we will have to accept the hard, bitter fact that getting the product before people has to be done.
The best of work and the best of luck,
Minor White (signature)
Minor White's Letter To Beaumont And Nancy Newhall
(Reproduced from Minor White: The Eye That Shapes by Peter Bunnell, The Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey, copyright 1989 by the Trustees of Princeton University.)
Dear Beau and Nancy:
Enclosed is the usual Spring dither on what we are teaching. It always amazes me to discover how much we expect to lay before the kids. Fortunately much of it is not presented directly, but forms the basis of criticism and discussion over prints and over hootch.
One of the values of teaching, to me, is now and then having to be what I am expected to be. The other day I had a letter from a third year man (Phil Hyde–and he really has something to give to the world), [which] put me on the spot. Is art to be a reflection of the hopelessness of the present day man or is it to be one of the solid things which he can hang on to. Whew! It came up over my Disaster Series which he felt was a powerful ride straight to destruction and that it was devastating because it did not offer even the faintest possibility of salvation. Soooo, at lecture Monday I had to go on record saying that for me, art was one of the faiths of the world. That jarred a few of the boys, but it vindicated this one man–not that he really needed it–it's his conviction anyway–but perhaps it would cement for him his belief and thus save him years of proving to himself that he was right. It is not often that I have to take a stand, trying to be four teachers at once, I can usually state that facts 1, 2, 3, 4, etc., are fact objectively. If I had other teachers who stood for one view or another I could afford to take one myself. But it is worth it. I grow up in that class because in order to answer their questions I am forced to. It was a wonderful lift to make that positive statement, art is a communication of ecstasy, it is one of the faiths of man. For all my photographing the lonely, the frustrated, the despair, it is my belief that my aim with art is the solution of these things within the work of art. Came home that evening about 8:00, tired and feeling free more than usual. A shot and Bach fugues and I was off on a binge of sheer lyricism….
Cherio,
Do you agree or disagree with Minor White? Is art one of the faiths of the world? Is art's role to show the dismal state of the world, or to give us hope and why?
(Continued in the blog post, "Minor White-Philip Hyde Letters 2.")
Posted in Minor White Letters
Tags: Art Beaumont Newhall California School of Fine Arts fine art photography Minor White Nancy Newhall Philip Hyde Princeton University San Francisco San Francisco Art Institute straight photography west coast tradition
San Francisco Art Institute Photography History, Part 12
Minor White Meets Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston, Paul Strand And Other Photography Greats All In One Year
Continued from the blog post, "Photography's Golden Era 11." The title of this series of blog posts has been changed from "Photography's Golden Era" to "San Francisco Art Institute Photography History." The next post in the series following this will be called, "San Francisco Art Institute Photography History, Part 13."
Rock Formations Detail, Weston Beach, Point Lobos State Reserve, California, copyright 1949 by Philip Hyde. Many of Philip Hyde's early close-ups and landscape photographs showed the influence of Edward Weston. Edward Weston and Minor White may have been present when this original large format 5X7 black and white photograph was made. Widely published and exhibited with Group f.64. Planned to appear in the forthcoming book: "The Golden Decade: Photography at the California School of Fine Arts, 1945-55."
See the photograph large, "Rock Formations Detail, Weston Beach, Point Lobos."
In January 1946, the same year he began teaching at the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute, Minor White met Alfred Stieglitz and in December he met Edward Weston. Alfred Stieglitz had a profound effect on Minor White and his photography and other photographers impacted Minor White's thinking, but the influence of Edward Weston became the greatest of all.
As a member of Beaumont Newhall and Nancy Newhall's social circle on the East Coast, that year Minor White also met Berenice Abbott, Harry Callahan, Edward Steichen, Paul Strand, Todd Webb, and Brett Weston.
Then in July 1946, with the help of Beaumont and Nancy Newhall, Minor White accepted a teaching position on the West Coast under Ansel Adams at the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute in California. Minor White started by teaching the Summer Session as Ansel Adams' assistant, but Ansel Adams recognized right away that Minor White had teaching talent and knowledge, besides he related to the students well. Within a few weeks, Ansel Adams left Minor White in charge and within a few months his job title changed to lead instructor. Arriving on the West Coast for the first time, Minor White moved from Princeton, New Jersey to a house owned by Ansel Adams at 129 24th Avenue in San Francisco, where Ansel Adams had his darkroom. Minor White would soon be as impacted by Edward Weston on the West Coast as he was by Alfred Stieglitz in New York City.
Parallels Between Minor White And Alfred Stieglitz
James Baker Hall wrote in his biographical essay in Minor White: Rites And Passages (Aperture Monograph) :
Some of the parallels between Alfred Stieglitz and Minor White are more apparent than others. Much of White's best work, both as a photographer and as an editor, came directly and consciously out of Stieglitz's idea of the Equivalent, the photographic image as a metaphor, as an objective correlative for a particular feeling or state of being associated with something other than the ostensible subject. Each man in his day embodied and promulgated that controlling idea by editing journals of comparable impact, Stieglitz with Camera Work, White with Aperture. Just as Stieglitz and Edward Weston—the other principle influence on White—fairly dominated a significant portion of the photography world during the second quarter of the century, so White, along with Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ansel Adams and Robert Frank, dominated it during the third. Ideas play a role in the influence of Weston, Cartier-Bresson, Adams and Frank, but not nearly as important a role as they do with Stieglitz and White. Their work as teachers and editors has reached far fewer people than their photographs, and it has been less well understood, but both men's lives testify in no uncertain way to the fact that it was every bit as important to them as their camera work.
Minor White's Most Profound Influence, Edward Weston
In December 1946, Minor White traveled south from his living quarters in one of Ansel Adams' houses next to Ansel Adams' darkroom near Baker Beach in San Francisco to Carmel and Point Lobos to meet Edward Weston for the first time. Edward Weston also lived in a cottage with his darkroom in Carmel Highlands on Wildcat Hill. Peter C. Bunnell, in the biographical chronology accompanying the exhibition The Temptation of St. Anthony Is Mirrors, wrote that Minor White began "a profound attachment to the man, his ideals, and the place." For the next few years Minor White took his students from the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute, on field trips to Point Lobos where they observed Edward Weston photographing with his large format view camera. The classes would then proceed to Edward Weston's home on Wildcat Hill where they reviewed Edward Weston prints and student's portfolios.
In Jeff Gunderson's essay in The Moment of Seeing: Minor White at the California School of Fine Arts , he wrote regarding Minor White's meeting with Edward Weston for the first time in December 1946:
This proved to be not only a personal, creative, and photographically significant milestone in his life, but it would also be of immense importance to the future of the school's photography program and its students. Over the next couple of years, White and his students took numerous field trips to Point Lobos, where they met with Edward Weston.
Peter C. Bunnell, in Minor White: The Eye That Shapes , wrote:
Edward Weston, who will have the most profound influence on White of any artist, develops a rapport with the younger photographer, and they meet many times before Weston's death in 1958. Based on White's deep admiration for Edward Weston and his work, Point Lobos will become for him a kind of quintessential photographic site, and it is in relation to his understanding of how Edward Weston gained his inspiration here that White will approach Point Lobos and other landscape sites for his own creative purposes.
Minor White And In Turn Philip Hyde, Both Mentored By Edward Weston
Philip Hyde also kept up a correspondence and regular visits to Wildcat Hill to see Edward Weston until his passing in 1958. Philip Hyde and four other California School of Fine Arts classmates, Bob Hollingsworth, Bill Heick, Al Richter and John Rogers, originally became more acquainted with Edward Weston than their other classmates by camping on his lawn in tents when the class visited Wildcat Hill on field trips. The tent campers would talk and review prints with Edward Weston into the night, but not too late as Edward Weston was an early riser. Then with Edward Weston's blessing, they would sleep a short time, wake up very early and lie awake waiting for signs of life in the house, whereupon they would rush inside and resume their discussion of photography with Edward Weston. This practice begun in 1947 continued for Philip Hyde for a number of years before Edward Weston's health failed. Ardis and Philip Hyde camped on Edward Weston's lawn and arose to show Edward Weston a new batch of prints, a number of times after Philp Hyde earned his certificate of completion from photography school in 1950. Read more on interactions between Edward Weston and Philip Hyde in future blog posts. For more on interactions between Minor White and Philip Hyde see the blog post, "Minor White Letters 1."
California School Of Fine Arts Field Trips, With Edward Weston On Point Lobos And At Edward Weston's Home In Carmel, Boosted Class Intensity
Minor White looked forward to his visits to see Edward Weston with great enthusiasm. Jeff Gunderson wrote that Minor White sent a letter in 1948 to Beaumont and Nancy Newhall just before his July 25 return to see the master:
Minor White considered the pilgrimage to Point Lobos "the climax of every year," so important that at one point he made the "generous proposal" to "forgo his own salary in favor of Mr. Weston." He waxed that "on this trip the intensity rose like a thermometer held over a match flame." He wanted to make sure that students had the opportunity "to study the working methods of artists" on the week-long trip with Weston "in his home territory." Weston and the students roamed "over Point Lobos for an afternoon without cameras." Only then would they photograph, while Weston would "climb around to each student and discuss what is on the ground glass." They would sit on the rocks at Point Lobos, gathered around Edward Weston, "all trying to figure out what makes an artist tick." After hiking and taking pictures, the students would drive to Carmel for dinner, then regroup at "Weston's cottage to see the man and his photographs." Weston "selected carefully, put them one at a time, on a spot-lighted easel. He talked quietly or not at all,…purred to his cats and kittens…He never belittled his work, never boasted, but let each picture speak for itself…And we looked. With the sound of the sea,…the smell of a log fire around, many of the seeds, planted during the year, sprouted." White, as well as the California School of Fine Arts students, benefited from the trek to Carmel. White was effusive about what he learned at Point Lobos in correspondence to Edward Weston. The students were familiar with Edward Weston by the time of the field trip to Carmel. His books were in the school library, his work talked about in classes, and one student, Ruth-Marion Baruch, had written Edward Weston: The Man, The Artist, and the Photograph as her master's thesis while a student at Ohio University…the cachet of Edward Weston's name on the roster of instructors would increase the schools profile.
All of it arranged by Minor White and to his credit as lead instructor of Ansel Adam's new photography program.
This series was to continue in a blog post called, "Photography's Golden Era 13," but the series will take the new title "San Francisco Art Institute Photography History." The next post in the series can therefore be found under the name, "San Francisco Art Institute Photography History 13."
Minor White: The Eye That Shapes by Peter C. Bunnell
The Moment of Seeing: Minor White at the California School of Fine Arts by Jeff Gunderson, Stephanie Comer and Deborah Klochko
Minor White: Rites And Passages (Aperture Monograph)
Tags: Al Richter Alfred Stieglitz Ansel Adams Aperture Magazine Ardis Hyde Art Beaumont Newhall Berenice Abbott Bill Heick Bob Hollingsworth Brett Weston California California School of Fine Arts Camera Work Carmel darkroom Edward Steichen Edward Weston Equivalents fine art photography Harry Callahan Henri Cartier-Bresson Imogen Cunningham John Rogers landscape photography large format view camera Minor White Nancy Newhall New York City Paul Strand Philip Hyde Point Lobos Princeton University Robert Frank San Francisco San Francisco Art Institute straight photography teaching photography west coast tradition Wildcat Hill