Every Mention of Ansel Adams in the New York Times in the 1930s

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(Note: This article is part of a series.)

August 17, 1930
Santa Fe Has Its Own Architecture. Inspired by Indians and Spanish, It Is Now of Frankly Modern Type. By Mildred Adams.

“Santa Fe has developed a style of architecture all its own, so distinctive that people are beginning to speak of ‘the Santa Fe type,’ just as they speak of a Cape Cod cottage or a French cháteau.”

Uses three of Ansel’s photos from Taos, cropped.


November 13, 1933
Indian Craft Opens New Art Gallery
In a long list, the article mentions Ansel’s exhibit at the Delphic Gallery in “Exhibitions This Week” subsection. This is the first paragraph of that list:

“Among the art events listed for this week are: Paintings by Utrillo and Edward Biberman at the Reinhardt Gallery; tempura drawings by Boris Grigoriev at the Marie Sterner; sculpture by Ruys Caparn, photographs by Ansel Adams and paintings by William Cooper at the Delphic Studios; sculpture by Aaron J. Gooselman at the Eight Street Gallery; work from the collection of J.B. Neumann (shown in connection with his series of lectures) at the New School for Social Research–these and other exhibitions will open today.”


November 19, 1933
Others Shows
A brief review of Ansel’s show at the Delphic Studios.

“Photography by Ansel Adams, a Californian, strikingly captures a world of poetic form. His lens has caught snow-laden branches in their delicate tracery; shells embedded in sandstone; great trees and cumulous clouds. It is masterly stuff.”


February 4, 1934
Winter Games Growing in Popularity in California With Aid of Park Program

“Hundreds of Winter sports enthusiasts are participating in the season’s activities in Yosemite, which are now at their height and will continue until Feb. 26, and beyond if the snow lasts.”

Photograph by Ansel Adams.


July 14. 1935
Six New Books About Art
Ansel’s book is second.

“Ansel Adams’s ‘Making A Photograph’ may be enthusiastically recommended as a very thorough, practical textbook on the subject. It discusses the equipment needed and the technique that should govern the various steps in the creation of a good photograph. The exposition, based on wide and long experience, is at no time narrowly dogmatic.”


March 1, 1936
CAMERA ART SHOW OPENS TOMORROW. 350 Photographs by Amateurs All Over Country Entered in Zeiss Exhibition. SOME BY PROFESSIONALS Series by Dr. T.J. Curphey of St. John’s Hospital Pictures Progress of Silicosis.

Ansel is listed an an exhibitor.


November 1, 1936
A Reviewer’s Notebook: Among New Exhibitions
A show by Ansel is reviewed as part of an exhibition round-up.

Full text of Ansel’s part of the review:

“Sponsored by Stieglitz–Ansel Adams, whose commercial work is well known and who has written an excellent book on photographs, is showing (till Nov. 25) a half hundred camera studies at An American Place. A skier spotted with snow, a rocky butte against a cloudy sky with great clarity of foreground foliage, the pattern of a pine cone or bark on a tree, a leathery face: These and kindred subjects reveal his personal use of the camera and clarifying ability. Some unusually interesting work.”


November 8, 1936
Through A Lens

A short review, of sorts, in a photography exhibition round-up.

“A large selection of photographic work by Ansel Adams is being sponsored by Alfred Stieglitz till Nov. 20 at An American Place–and that is perhaps sufficient commentary on the caliber of the exhibition.”


April 3, 1939
Modern Art Museum Gets 54 Photographs. Gift From A.M. Bender to Be in Permanent Exhibit.

Prominent mention of Ansel’s work as part of a donation from Ansel’s patron, Albert Bender.

“The gift includes seventeen prints by Ansel Adams, fourteen by Brett Weston, eleven by Edward Weston, six by Cedric Wright, three by Henry Swift, two by Sidney Snaer and one by Imogen Cunningham.

Some of the prints by Mr. Adams and Brett Weston will be included in the photography section of the exhibition with which the museum will open its new building at 11 West Fifty-third Street on May 11.”


June 4, 1939
New Editions, Fine & Otherwise

Toward the end of a nearly full-page round-up of book, Ansel’s The John Muir Trail is highlighted.

“The Archetype Press of Berkeley, Calif., has brought out in a large and luxurious format, covered in white cloth, a collection of photographs od “Sierra Nevada, The John Muir Trail,” by Ansel Adams.

These pictures are very beautiful and show the full majesty of the jagged peaks against cumulus clouds, who’s white masses are repeated by the snowing the valleys or the foam of waterfalls. As one turn the pages, one comes across photographs of lovely, lacy fern-patterns, a charred trunk with grasses growing at its base, or tiny flowers blooming in the crevice of a rock. These give scale to the grandiose immensity of the mountains.

These Sierra Nevada landscapes are exquisite and have received a handsome and appropriate setting at the hands of Wilder and Ellen Bentley.”


August 27, 1939
THE EAST VS. THE WESTCHARM VS. GRANDEUR

A three-page feature article describing the characteristics of the western United States. An Ansel Adams photograph appears on the third page.


December 24, 1939
The Struggle For Justice
A large, multi-image spread of murals from the Department of Justice Building in Washington, DC. The murals were photographed by Ansel.

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