Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (1941) is one of Ansel Adams’ (b. 1902) most iconic images. It depicts an almost full moon hanging above swathes of dense cloud. The snowy peaks of mountains sit off in the distance, giving way to the flat expanse of the New Mexico desert. There is a small cluster of buildings, although no people are in sight. It’s quintessentially Adams, and an example of the landscape photography that saw him become one of the most celebrated lens-based artists of the 20th century. The black-and-white images of the American West were lauded for both their technical precision and environmental advocacy. California Museum of Photography’s new exhibition, Lost in the Wilderness: Ansel Adams in the 1960s, picks up from a period in the artist’s life where he had already gained notoriety and renown. Rather than considering famous works, the exhibition explores Fiat Lux, a series made during a period of national and personal turmoil.
Adams’ early work was dedicated to recording the USA’s remaining fragments of untouched wilderness, especially the American West. Born and raised amid the sand dunes of the Golden Gate, the artist spent much of his youth hiking and exploring the natural surroundings. His devotion to the country’s beauty began in childhood and never left. Adams’ early pictures, created throughout the 1920s, focused on Yosemite National Park, where he worked as the custodian of the conservationist Sierra Club. The artist said of the area: “I know of no sculpture, painting, or music that exceeds the compelling spiritual command of the soaring shape of granite cliff and dome, of patina of light on rock and forest, and of the thunder and whispering of the falling, flowing waters.” The powerful and original images gained him worldwide notoriety and fame that continues to this day, as well as outlined a technical simplicity that would define his oeuvre for the next four decades.
The dawn of the 1960s was a markedly new era. The Civil Rights Movement gained even more momentum. In 1961, Black students held sit-ins at “white” restaurants. The most famous were the “Greensboro Four” whose action resulted in a department store ending its policy of segregation. Two years later, Martin Luther King Jr. led the March on Washington, where he delivered his I Have a Dream speech to a crowd of 250,000 people. The Civil Rights Act was passed a year later. Elsewhere, protests against the Vietnam War escalated amongst students and young people, becoming a cornerstone of the Countercultural movement. For Adams, this also meant a new generation of conceptual photographers had lost interest in the landscapes that had defined much of the canon up to that point. Instead, the subject matter on offer had been diversified: protest, alienation, sexuality and social justice.
Adams’ Fiat Lux project traverses the dark heart of the sixties – 1963 to 1968. It’s a sprawling six-year commission from the University of California. It is one of Adams’ most expansive series, serving as a time capsule for the rapid change happening on the University’s campuses and amongst student populations. The images bristle with modernity. Snaking highways loop around and over one another. Science labs make for uncomfortable viewing in the 21st century; animal testing is the subject of one image. In another, a group of students lounge in a park, typical of the countercultural movement.
Lost in the Wilderness sees Adams consider his native state from a new angle. Although the series may appear like an active shift to more contemporary ideas, the reality is far more complicated. Amid the technically masterful flow, there is a continual struggle rather than clarity. The landscape master tentatively dips a toe into the flow of photographic change. Douglas McCulloh, curator of the show, said: “reviewing the full Fiat Lux archive reveals this: Adams has reached the endpoint of his chilly, magnificently hopeful formalism. And he senses it. We see him trying to fight his way out, but he’s not able. The new sixties photographers embrace the onrushing future and reject Adams’ embalmed past. The contrast is clear—predictions and harbingers versus remembrances and legacies.”
This exhibition shines a light on an aspect of Ansel Adams’ career that has been overlooked. The complete archive of more than 7,000 images, spanning the majority of the decade, reveals a man whose photographic coordinates have become unfixed. The show is a unique insight into a tumultuous decade and the impact it had – not only on a nationwide scale, but to one single individual. It is a reminder that even for the country’s best-known photographer, art itself always shifts and evolves.
Lost in the Wilderness: Ansel Adams in the 1960s is at UCR ARTS California Museum of Photography until 28 September 2025: ucrarts.ucr.edu
Words: Emma Jacob
Image Credits:
Ansel Adams. UCI.20.01, April, 1967/2024. Chromogenic Print. Courtesy of California Museum of Photography collection.
Ansel Adams. UCLA.48.8, October, 1966/2024. Chromogenic Print. Courtesy of California Museum of Photography collection.
Ansel Adams. UCI.6.9, December, 1966/2024. Chromogenic Print. Courtesy of California Museum of Photography collection.
Ansel Adams. UCLA.17.4, November, 1966/2024. Chromogenic Print. Courtesy of California Museum of Photography collection.
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