Picket Fence

Print Notes

This is the only known print of this image. Following Stieglitz’s death in 1946, Beaumont and Nancy Newhall were invited by Georgia O'Keeffe to come to the gallery where they selected the present print and two others from Adams' 1936 exhibition. In a letter to Adams the next day, Nancy Newhall recounted, ‘We accepted your generosity to the extent of adding three to our collection, and they are now hanging on the wall. One is the Mariposa courthouse against the black sky. The others are little jewels-one of a picket fence, and the other a perfect pair to it with similar forms but of weathered wood’ (Ansel Adams: An American Place, p. 33). The admiration for this pair of prints was one which Stieglitz had shared-the two ‘little jewels’ had been hung side by side during the original exhibition.

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Description

Ansel Adams
1902-1984
c. 1936
Vintage gelatin silver print signed in pencil on front of mount. Photographer's San Francisco studio label (BMFA Label 4) with typed title on the reverse, circa 1936.
Image: 72 1/2 x 96 inches
Frame: 6 x 8 feet
Location: AAP ~ Unique ID 49

Condition Report

This early, semi-glossy print, on slick white Bristol board and with Adams' tight early signature, is in generally excellent condition. Upon examination in high raking light, several tiny pinpoint-sizes matte deposits, and faint silvering along the right edge, are visible. There is a faint glossy rubbing on the mount corresponding to where it came in contact with the mat window. The extreme edges of the mount are age-appropriately yellowed, and there is very minor wear. There are a few abrasions on the reverse of the mount along the upper edge, and four hinge remnants. '300.503' is written in an unidentified hand in pencil on the reverse.

Provenance

An American Place, New York Collection of Beaumont and Nancy Newhall, acquired from the above, 1946 Lunn Gallery, Washington D.C., acquired from the above, 1979 by Manfred Heiting, acquired by the present owner from the above, circa 1991.

Literature

Andrea Gray, Ansel Adams: An American Place, 1936 (Tucscon: Center for Creative Photography, 1982) pl. 35 (this print); Ansel Adams, Ansel Adams: An Autobiography (Boston, 1985) p. 128.

Exhibition History

New York, An American Place, Ansel Adams: Exhibition of Photographs, October-November 1936; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, An American Place, May-July 1982 and traveling thereafter to: Tucson, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, October-November, 1982; Seattle Art Museum, December 1982-January 1983; Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, February-April 1983; The Art Institute of Chicago, April-May 1983; Washington, D.C., Corcoran Gallery of Art, June-July 1983.