Experience with Adams and Strand

[Dan Dozer]

I had the most unexpected experience last week regarding Ansel Adams and Paul Strand.

A little background - I'm an architect by profession and have a project underway to design a new building at a school in the Monterey, CA area. Our kickoff meeting with the faculty members there was at the Library at the school.

I got to the Library a little early and imagine my surprise when the first thing I see on the wall is "Winter Sunrise From Lone Pine" by Adams in a size at least 20 x 24. I'm thinking "What's going on here?" Then I turn around and see three wonderful Paul Strand iamges from his "Mexican Portfolio". The farther through the Library I went, the more Strand portfolio images I saw ranging in sizes from 5 x 6.25 to 8 x 10. I've seen many Adams prints before but never any Strand images, and they must have the whole Mexican portfolio in that library.

I'm willing to bet that probably most of the kids who go to that school and probably many of the teachers don't even know what they have in their library.

Can't wait to go back and enjoy the artwork more.

[r.e.]

Why do you think that most of the kids and many of the teachers don't know who made these photographs? And if they don't know who made them, do you have any reason to believe that they don't appreciate them? In other words, why do you seem to think that you appreciate them more than they do?

[Vaughn]

The old Visitor Center at Lava Beds national Monument use to have a Edward Weston original (taken at Lava Beds) just hanging on the wall. They built a new visitor center and now just have what looks to be a photo-copy of the print on the wall. I just image one of the rangers or secretaries taking the photo out of the frame and putting it on the copy machine.

Also makes me wonder where the original went to...

[Merg Ross]

I'm willing to bet that probably most of the kids who go to that school and probably many of the teachers don't even know what they have in their library.


Really? It seems odd to assume that the students and teachers in a Monterey area school would be unaware of such treasures in their library. Don't bet too much!

[Brian Ellis]

Well at least the school board knows it can always finance a new school building by selling the photographs, no need for a bond issue. : - )

Are you sure they're originals? A single unsigned Strand photograph pulled from an issue of Camera Work recently sold for $34,000. And you're talking about maybe an entire portfolio? Plus a large famous Adams photograph? Hanging on the walls of a school library? Sounds very strange. Among other possible problems, this isn't something the school's insurance carrier would appreciate, at least not without a hefty rider.

[Dan Dozer]

The Strand work is from his Mexican Portfolio because I found a sign up stating that. Did a internet looking into that portfolio and appeares they were photogravuer prints made from plates of his original photos. So, obviously not as valuable as original Strand photographs, but valuable (and beautiful) just the same. I first thought they were platinum prints because that is what they looked like. I don't know anything about the photogravuer process, but I assume that is what they were.

[tgtaylor]

Even more astounding is the 74 foot murial by Diego Rivera that sits hidden and unoticed in a little known theatre on the City College of San Francisco campus:

http://www.7x7.com/arts-culture/best-underexplored-art-treasure-city

Rivera was a portrait subject for Adams.

Thomas

[Deane Johnson]

While attending the 1975 Ansel Adams Workshop in Yosemite, we had a gathering in the gym of the high school there. I think it was a high school, perhaps some other school.

What was notable to me were the large Ansel Adams prints, probably either 30x40 or 40x60 that were mounted high on the gym walls.

I'm sure anyone attending school in Yosemite would know who Ansel Adams was, but, you never know.