Lake near Kaweah Gap, Sequoia National Park, California (a.k.a., Frozen Lakes and Cliffs)

Print Notes

Adams wrote "I made this photograph while on the annual (Sierra) Club outing in the Kaweah and Kern River watersheds, in many ways the most spectacular region of the Sierra. On the long trek from Giant Precipice Lake ...The lake was partially frozen and snowbanks rested in the recesses of the cliffs. I was impressed with the solemn beauty of the scene and saw the image quite clearly in my mind..."Many speak of this image as abstract, but I was not conscious of any such definition at the time... For photographic compositions I think in terms of creating configuration out of chaos, rather than following any conventional rules of composition. Edward Weston said simply that 'composition is the strongest way of seeing.'" According to Adams, a friend made a photograph from exactly the same location at the same time. Later, on seeing Adams' finished photograph, he exclaimed, "Jeez, Why didn't I see that!"

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Description

Ansel Adams
1902-1984
1932 | Printed 1980
Gelatin silver print, signed by Ansel Adams in pencil on the mount, the Museum Set Edition stamp, numbered "883" in an unidentified hand, on the back.
Image: 14 1/4 x 18 3/8 inches
Frame: 26 1/2 x 30 3/4 inches
Location: Miami ~ Unique ID 214

Condition Report

Excellent

Provenance

Purchased from the Virginia Adams Charitable Trust, through Weston Gallery.

Literature

Sierra Club Bulletin, February 1933, Number 1, Volume XVIII (book gifted to GH from Weston Gallery 2/2020); Nancy Wynne Newhall, Ansel Adams: the Eloquent Light, Aperture, New York, 1980, pp. 168-169; John Szarkowski, Ansel Adams at 100, Little, Brown and Co., Boston, 2001, p. 32; Anne Hammond, Ansel Adams: Divine Performance, New Haven: Yale University Press, New Haven, 2002, p. 52; Karen E. Haas et al., Ansel Adams: in the Lane Collection, MFA Publications, Boston, 2005, p. 120; Andrea Stillman (ed.), Ansel Adams: 400 Photographs, Little, Brown and Co., New York, 2007, p. 93; Andrea Stillman (ed.), Ansel Adams in the National Parks: Photographs from America's Wild Places, Little, Brown and Co., New York, 2010, p. 10.