• Photographs Including Property auction at Christies

    Sale 14357

    Photographs Including Property Sold to Benefit the Elton John AIDS Foundation

    New York

    |

    6 April 2017

    Browse Sale
Previous Lot
Search
Next Lot
    • Ansel Adams (1902–1984)
    Lot 235

    Ansel Adams (1902–1984)

    Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park, California, 1938

    Price realised

    USD 559,500

    Estimate

    USD 300,000 - USD 500,000

    Follow lot
    Add to Interests

    Ansel Adams (1902–1984)
    Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park, California, 1938
    gelatin silver mural print, flush–mounted on board, printed 1970–1975
    image/sheet/flush mount: 40 1/2 x 54 1/2 in. (102.5 x 138.8 cm.)

    Provenance

    Corporate Collection, California, 1970–1975;
    Their sale; Christie's, New York, April, 11, 2008, lot 1058;
    acquired from the above sale by the present owner.

    Contact us

    • Contact Client Service

      info@christies.com

      New York +1 212 636 2000

      London +44 (0)20 7839 9060

      infoasia@christies.com

      Asia +852 2760 1766

    Literature and exhibited

    Literature

    Nancy Newhall, Ansel Adams: The Eloquent Light, Sierra Club, San Francisco, 1963, pp. 88-89.
    Ansel Adams, Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs, Little, Brown and Co., New York, 1983, p. 102.
    James Alinder (ed.), Ansel Adams: 1902-1984 (Untitled 37), The Friends of Photography, San Francisco, 1984, p. 34.
    Ansel Adams and Paul Brooks, Yosemite and the Range of Light, Little, Brown and Co., New York, 1992, cover and frontispiece.
    John Szarkowski, Ansel Adams at 100, Little, Brown and Co., New York, 2001, pl. 89.
    Andrea Stillman, Looking at Ansel Adams: The Photographs and the Man, Little, Brown and Co., New York, 2012, p. 102.


    Lot Essay

    Yosemite is one of the great gestures of the Earth… a beauty that is as solid and apparent as the granite rock in which it is carved.
    —Ansel Adams to Alfred Stieglitz, 1937

    In the 1890s author Susie Clark described her first glimpse of New Inspiration Point along the rim of Yosemite Valley and poignantly chronicled a vision that silences most viewers: ‘… we realized with a gasp that was almost pain, that we were looking upon the marvelous Valley. We stood on Inspiration Point… There are some moments, some experiences that come to us which are untranslatable in any human speech, and this was one…’ (Clark, The Round Trip, Lee and Shepard, 1890, pp. 128-129).

    Approximately forty years later Ansel Adams stood at the same Yosemite Valley overlook, which the artist himself described as ‘one of the most wonderful viewpoints in the whole world.' Taken around noon on a December day, Adams waited for a snowstorm to clear so he could capture what would become one of his most iconic compositions (Adams, ‘Yosemite’, Travel and Camera Magazine, October 1946). The vantage point was difficult to navigate but optimal, the weather and light ideal for making a ‘fairly strong’ negative, which Adams considered the canvas on which he burned and dodged his final creation (Stillman, Looking at Ansel Adams: The Photographs and the Man, p. 105) (fig. 1).

    It is no surprise that Adams, with a lifelong affinity for classical music, astronomy and a deep philosophical drive, was capable of imbuing his prints with a sense of existential realism that went far beyond documentation. As a young man Adams admired Beethoven and his ability to convey ‘a world of thought of the loftiest nature’ bringing the listener ‘so much closer to an understanding of the Great Mystery’ (Hammond, Ansel Adams: Divine Performance, Yale University Press, 2002, p. 4). This is arguably what Adams achieved for his viewers. With superlative technical skill and the intellectual rigor necessary to evoke such raw emotion from a photograph, he successfully crafted experiences. One does not simply observe an Adams print—one senses it instinctively. He was awed equally by the capability of his artistic medium and the spiritual potential of the landscape—and he managed somehow, wondrously, to fuse the two on a sheet of photographic paper.

    The present lot represents one of Ansel’s largest mural prints, most notable for the precise detail that the artist was able to capture in his meticulous printing, even when enlarging an 8 x 10 inch negative to this extraordinary size. While Adams was cautious about print sizes, he believed a larger format was essential for this extraordinary vista: ‘The Yosemite storm is an old negative… From one point of view it should not be as large, but I think size is necessary from the point of view of majesty and dramatic force’ (Alinder & Stillman, eds., Ansel Adams Letters and Images 1916-1984, Bullfinch Press, 1988, p. 273).

    This print was one of approximately two hundred commissioned by a California-based organization from 1969-1975. Upon relocating, representatives from the company decided to cover their new walls with California scenes. Thus began a six year collaboration during which time Ansel advised on wall color, frames, curation and print choice. Ansel was, at this time, accepting corporate commissions and many of his mural prints on the market today were created in this context. As was common, the present lot is unsigned and flush-mounted to a thick board for exhibition purposes.

    A peerless figure in the history of photography, Ansel’s timeless image of New Inspiration Point is alive, impossibly evocative and eternally breathtaking.

    Other information

    Pre-Lot Text

    PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED NEW YORK COLLECTION

    Recommended features

    Load all features
      • Antenna: The enduring friendsh
      • Antenna: The enduring friendship of Hepburn and Givenchy

        Ahead of an online sale that honours their close bond, Meredith Etherington-Smith​ traces the roots of a 40-year collaboration

      • Trending: Women artists to col
      • Trending: Women artists to collect right now

        ​Offered across three sales in April and May, artists ranging from Carol Rama to Rachel Whiteread whose markets are on the rise

      • Studio Visit: Todd Hido
      • Studio Visit: Todd Hido

        We catch up with the photographer behind the wheel of his car as he seeks to add to his celebrated series, Homes at Night 

      • Studio Visit: Hiroshi Sugimoto
      • Studio Visit: Hiroshi Sugimoto

        We visit the artist in Tokyo, where he discusses his celebrated images of old American movie theatres

      • Herb Ritts: ‘The camera was an
      • Herb Ritts: ‘The camera was an extension of his body’

        An exclusive glimpse inside the archives of a photographer whose sumptuous images encapsulated an era

      • 10 things to know about Ansel&
      • 10 things to know about Ansel Adams

        A guide to the pioneering photographer and environmentalist forever identified with the majesty of the American West

      • Collecting Guide: Lalique
      • Collecting Guide: Lalique

        Specialist Joy McCall answers key questions for collectors of the glassmaker’s exquisite pieces. Illustrated with lots offered in the Lalique sale on 15 May

      • A leap into space: Malevich’s
      • A leap into space: Malevich’s Suprematist Composition

        Offered in May, a 1916 canvas that was included in every major survey of Malevich’s Suprematist works during his lifetime, and which revolutionised modern art

Share
Email
Copy link
Share
Email
Copy link