Yosemite

“Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space,” wrote Ansel Adams. “I know of no sculpture, painting, or music that exceeds the compelling spiritual command of the soaring shape of the granite cliff and dome, of patina of light on rock and forest, and of the thunder and whispering of the falling, flowing waters.” Adams began capturing the majestic landscape of Yosemite National Park when he was just fourteen years old, using his first camera (a Kodak Brownie) to photograph the towering rock formation Half Dome. The photographer’s love affair with the park only grew with time. He worked as a summer caretaker of the visitor’s lodge as a teenager, served as a board member of the park’s advisory group the Sierra Club, and even met his wife on the trails. In 2010, Adams’s mural-sized photograph Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park (1944) broke the artist’s auction record, reaching over $700,000 at Sotheby’s.