1902
Born Ansel Easton Adams on February 20, at 1 14 Maple Street, San Francisco; the only child of Olive Bray and Charles Flitch- cock Adams. The family home is completed the next year at 129 Twenty-fourth Avenue, in the sand dune area overlooking the Golden Gate.
1906
Family survives the great San Francisco earthquake, although Adams falls during an aftershock and breaks his nose.
1907
Grandfather William Adams dies and family lumbering business tails. Charles Hitchcock Adams spends much of the rest of his life attempting to repay the debts of the failed business.
1908
An enormously curious and gifted child, Adams begins a precarious and unsuccessful journey through the rigid structure of the school system. Grandfather Bray and Aunt Mary Bray come to live with his family.
1914
Teaches himself to play the piano and excels at serious music study.
1915
Despises the regimentation of a regular education, and is taken out of school. For that year, his father buys him a season pass to
the Panama-Pacific Exposition, which he visits almost every day. Private tutors provide further instruction.
1916
Persuades parents to take family vacation in Yosemite National Park. Begins to photograph there using his first camera and develops an enthusiastic interest in both photography and the national park. Returns to Yosemite every year for the rest of his life.
1917
Receives grammar school diploma from the Mrs. Kate M. Wilkins Private School, San Francisco. Though largely self-taught 111 photography, he works that year and the next at Frank Ditt- man’s photo-fmishing business.
1920
Spends the first of four summers as the custodian of the Sierra Club headquarters in Yosemite. Photography becomes more than a hobby as he begins to articulate his ideas about the creative potentials of the medium. Continues piano studies with professional ambitions, studying with Frederick Zech.
1921
Finds a piano to practice on during second entire summer in Yosemite at Best’s Studio, a Yosemite concession selling paintings, photographs, books, and gifts. Meets Harry Best’s daughter.
Virginia. Takes first high-country trip into the Sierra with Francis “Uncle Frank’’ Holman.
1922
Publishes first illustrated article, on the Lyell Fork of the Merced River, in the Sierra Club Bulletin.
1925
Decides to become a concert pianist and purchases a Mason and Hamlin grand piano. Explores Kings River Canyon with the LeConte family. Takes a similar trip the following summer.
1926
Takes first trip to Carmel with Albert Bender, who becomes his patron; meets Robinson Jeffers there.
1927
Makes the photograph Monolith, The Face of Half Dome. He considers this image to be his first “visualization,” using the term to describe the photographer’s preexposure determination of the visual and emotional qualities of the finished print. Publishes initial portfolio, Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras [sic] (San Francisco: Jean Chambers Moore). Goes on first Sierra Club outing. Travels with Bender in California and New Mexico, where he meets Mary Austin.
1928
Marries Virginia Best in Yosemite. First one-man exhibition held
at the Sierra Club, San Francisco. His photographs will be included in more than five hundred exhibitions during his lifetime.
1929
In Taos, meets Georgia O’Keeffe and John Marin at Mabel Dodge Luhan’s estate.
1930
Meets Paul Strand in Taos, becomes committed to a lull-time career in photography alter understanding Strand’s total dedication to creative photography and seeing his negatives. Builds home in San Francisco, where he begins seeking commercial photography assignments. Publishes Taos Pueblo, containing twelve original photographs with text by Mary Austin.
1931
Writes photography column lor The Fortnightly, reviews Eugene Atget and Edward Weston exhibitions at San Francisco’s M. FI. de Young Memorial Museum. Exhibition of sixty prints at the Smithsonian Institution.
1932
With Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, and other proponents of pure photography, lounds Group f/ 64, and is a part of the renowned Group f/ 64 exhibition at the de Young; also has one-man show there.
1933
Son Michael born. Meets Alfred Stieglitz at his gallery, An American Place, in New York City. Opens Ansel Adams Gallery at 166 Geary Street, San Francisco, after return. First New York City exhibition at Delphic Studios.
1934
Elected to the Board of Directors of the Sierra Club.
1935
Daughter Anne born. Publishes Making a Photograph: An Introduction to Photography (London: The Studio Publications).
1936
One-man exhibition at An American Place. Lobbies congressmen in Washington, D.C. on behalf of the Sierra Club for the establishment ol Kings Canyon National Park. Virginia inherits Best’s Studio after her father’s death.
1937
They move to Yosemite in the spring, where they take over the proprietorship of Best’s Studio. His Yosemite darkroom burns, destroying twenty percent of his negatives. He continues to work and maintain his professional studio in San Francisco. Takes photography treks with Edward Weston through the High Sierra and with Georgia O’Keeffe and David McAlpin through the Southwest. Photographs included in first historical survey of the medium at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
1938
Takes O’Keeffe and McAlpin through Yosemite and on High Sierra explorations. Photographs with Edward Weston in the Owens Valley. Publishes Siena Nevada: The John Muir Trail (Berkeley: Archetype Press).
1939
Meets Beaumont and Nancy Newhall in New York. Has major exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
1940
Teaches first workshop in Yosemite, the U.S. Camera Photographic Forum, with Edward Weston. Organizes the exhibition and edits the catalogue for “The Pageant of Photography” for the Golden Gate Exposition, held at the Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco. Helps to found the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, with Newhall and McAlpin.
1941
Develops his Zone System technique of exposure and development control while teaching at Art Center School in Los Angeles. In 1941 and 1942 photographs national parks and monuments for the Department of Interior; project ends in June 1942 because of World War II. Publishes Michael and Anne in Yosemite Valley, text by Virginia Adams (The Studio Publications).
1943
Photographs at Manzanar Relocation Center, begins Born Free and Equal photo-essay on the loyal Japanese-Americans interned there.
1944
Publishes Born Free and Equal (New York: U.S. Camera).
1946
Receives John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship to photograph the national parks and monuments. Founds Department of Photography at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, later renamed the San Francisco Art Institute. Hires Minor White to teach with him. Publishes Illustrated Guide to Yosemite Valley, with Virginia Adams (San Francisco: H. S. Crocker).
Photographs extensively for Guggenheim Fellowship in the national parks and monuments during 1947, 1948, and 1949.
1948
Guggenheim Fellowship renewed. Begins lifelong friendship with Dr. Edwin Land. Publishes Basic Photo Series 1: Camera and Lens, and 2: The Negative (Hastings-on- Hudson, New York: Morgan & Morgan) and Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada, edited by Charlotte E. Mauk with the selected words of John Muir (Boston: Houghton Milflin Company). Issues Portfolio I in an edition of 75.
1949
Becomes consultant for newly founded Polaroid Corporation.
1950
Publishes Basic Photo Series 3: The Print (Morgan & Morgan), My Camera in Yosemite Valley (Yosemite: Virginia Adams and Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company), and a reprint ol the 1903 title, with his photographs, The Land of Little Rain, text by Mary Austin (Houghton Mifflin Company). Issues Portfolio II, The National Parks and Monuments in an edition of 105. His mother, Olive, dies.
1951
His father, Charles, dies.
1952
Publishes Basic Photo Series 4: Natural-Light Photography (Morgan & Morgan). Exhibition at the George Eastman House, Rochester. Helps found Aperture, a journal of creative photography, with the Newhalls, Minor White, and others.
1953
Does Life photo-essay with Dorothea Lange on the Mormons in Utah.
1954
Publishes Death Valley (Palo Alto: 5 Associates), Mission San Xavier del Bac (5 Associates), and The Pageant of History in Northern California (San Francisco: American Trust Co.). Nancy Newhall contributes the text for all three books.
1955
The Ansel Adams Yosemite Workshop, an intense short-term creative photography learning experience, begins as an annual event.
1956
Organizes with Nancy Newhall the exhibition “This Is The American Earth” for circulation by the United States Information Service. Publishes Basic Photo Series 3: Artificial-Light Photography (Morgan & Morgan).
1958
Receives third Guggenheim Fellowship. Publishes The Islands of Hawaii, text by Edward Joesting (Honolulu: Bishop National Bank of Hawaii).
1959
Publishes Yosemite Valley, edited by Nancy Newhall (5 Associates).
1960
Publishes This Is The American Earth, text by Nancy Newhall (Sierra Club). Issues Portfolio III, Yosemite Valley in an edition of 208.
1962
Builds a home and studio over¬
looking the Pacific Ocean in Carmel Highlands, California. Over the next two decades, he produces in the spacious darkroom most of the fine prints made during his career. Publishes Death Valley and the Creek Called Furnace, text by Edwin Corle (Los Angeles: Ward Ritchie) and These We Inherit: The Parklands of America (Sierra Club).
1963
The Eloquent Light, a retrospective exhibition with prints from 1923 to 1963, shown at the de Young Museum. Publishes Polaroid Land Photography Manual (Morgan & Morgan) and first volume of a biography, Ansel Adams: Volume 1, The Eloquent Light, text by Nancy Newhall (Sierra Club). The planned subsequent volumes were not completed. Publishes revised edition of Illustrated Guide to Yosemite Valley (Sierra Club). Issues Portfolio IV, What Majestic Word in an edition of 260.
1964
Publishes An Introduction to Hawaii, text by Edward Joesting (5 Associates).
1965
Joins President Johnson’s environmental task force; photographs published in the president’s report, A More Beautiful America . . . (New York: American Conservation Association).
1966
Elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
1967
Founder, president, and, later, chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Friends ot Photography, Carmel. Publishes Fiat Lux:
The University of California, text by Nancy Newhall (New York: McGraw-Hill).
1970
Publishes The Tetons and the Yellowstone, text by Nancy Newhall (5 Associates) and revised edition of Basic Photo Series 1: Camera and Lens (Morgan & Morgan). Issues Portfolio V in an edition of 110.
1971
Following 37 years of service, resigns position as a director of the Sierra Club.
1972
Publishes a monograph Ansel Adams, edited by Liliane De Cock (Morgan & Morgan).
1974
First trip to Europe, where he teaches at the Arles, France, photography festival. Major exhibition, “Photographs by Ansel Adams,” initiated and circulated by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Publishes Singular Images (Morgan & Morgan) and Images: 1923-1974 (Boston: New York Graphic Society [NYGS]). Issues Portfolio VI in an edition of no.
1975
Helps found the Center for Creative Photography at the University ot Arizona, Tucson, where his archive is established.
1976
Begins exclusive publishing agreement with NYGS, a division of Little, Brown and Company. Publishes Photographs of the Southwest (NYGS). Issues Portfolio VII m an edition of 115. Attends the opening of his major exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
1977
Publishes The Portfolios of Ansel Adams (NYGS) and a facsimile edition of the book Taos Pueblo (NYGS). With Virginia, endows curatorial fellowship at the Museum of Modern Art in honor of Beaumont and Nancy Newhall. Begins complete revision of his technical books with the collaboration of Robert Baker.
1978
Publishes Polaroid Land Photography (NYGS) and Ansel Adams: 30 Years of Portraits, by James Alin- der (Carmel: The Friends of Photography). Elected honorary vice- president of the Sierra Club.
1979
Major retrospective exhibition, “Ansel Adams and the West,” held at the Museum of Modern Art. Publishes Yosemite and the Range of Light (NYGS) and is the subject of a Time magazine cover story. Begins writing his autobiography with Mary Street Alin- der and printing his Museum Sets, 75 prints representative of his life’s work.
1980
Receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, from President Jimmy Carter. Publishes The Camera / The New Ansel Adams Photography Series, Book 1 (NYGS).
1981
Publishes The Negative/Book 2 (NYGS).
1983
Publishes Examples, The Making of 40 Photographs (NYGS) and The Print/Book 3 (NYGS). Ansel
Adams Day proclaimed by the California State Legislature.
1984
Dies April 22nd. California Senators Alan Cranston and Pete Wilson sponsor legislation to create an Ansel Adams Wilderness Area of more than 200,000 acres between Yosemite National Park and the John Muir Wilderness Area. The Friends of Photography publish memorial book,
Ansel Adams, 1902-1984.
1985
Mt. Ansel Adams, an 11,760-foot peak located at the head of the Lyell Fork of the Merced River on the southeast boundary of Yosemite National Park, officially named on the first anniversary of his death. Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust (AAPRT) releases Ansel Adams: An Autobiography, with Mary Street Alinder (NYGS). Major exhibition, “Ansel Adams: Classic Images,” at the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
1986
AAPRT releases Ansel Adams: Classic Images, text by James Alinder and John Szarkowski (NYGS).
1987
Major exhibition, “Ansel Adams: One With Beauty,” at M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco.
1988
AAPRT releases Ansel Adams: Letters and Images 1916—1984, edited by Mary Street Alinder and Andrea Gray Stillman (NYGS).
BY JAMES ALINDER