On display concurrently with Ansel Adams: Celebration of Genius, this selection of images from the Museum’s permanent collection affirms Ansel Adams’s values and pay tribute to his immeasurable contribution to environmental thought.

Ansel Adams is recognized as a pioneer in the encouragement of environmental awareness. As official photographer, trustee and spokesman for the Sierra Club, he was an early activist. His epic evocations of pristine wilderness raised national consciousness of wilderness preservation and were used to lobby Congress to establishnational parks.

The idealized landscape we associate with Adams is only one of many approaches photographers have used to encourage us to consider our relationship to our planet. Some choose simply to document human abuse of the environment, or to show its effects, while others use humor or ironic juxtaposition to raise questions or express opinions. This survey from the Photograph Collection includes images of railroads, mines, factories, urban sprawl and nuclear explosions from the nineteenth century to the present day.

This exhibition is dedicated to Ansel Adams, environmentalist.

—Alison Nordström, Curator of Photographs
George Eastman House, Rochester, New York

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