Thesis

Title: This Is the American Earth: An Exhibition and Book by Ansel Adams, Nancy Newhall, and the Sierra Club (1955-1960)

Master of Arts, Photographic Preservation and Collections Management

Date: 2014

Advisors: Dr. Jessica S. McDonald and David Harris

Generously supported by the SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship

Looking at the history of an American photography exhibition

Produced during the Cold War

(in the same year as The Family of Man)

On the theme of environmental conservation

Displaying the work of 27 photographers

And exactly 103 photographs

But also including natural specimens, music, and narrative texts

Toured nationally & internationally

Organized by best friends and creative partners, Ansel Adams & Nancy Newhall

Along with the outdoors group the Sierra Club

And 5 years later -

Their eponymous photo book

The first in the Sierra Club’s Exhibit Format Series

 
 

This research departs from my interest in the history of photography exhibitions and the evolution of photography from illustration to a medium of fine art, investigating the display methods, contexts, networks, opportunities, and infrastructure for artist-photographers before the ‘photo-boom’ of the 1980s.

When I first came across the Sierra Club’s “Exhibit Format Series,” it stood out to me for its beautiful, oversized format and high-quality photo reproductions - that is, relative to mid-century American publishing standards (American photobooks were much fewer in number and at a lower production quality than their European counterparts). It led me down the path of landscape photographer Ansel Adams and curator Nancy Newhall who starting in 1954, embarked on a six-year long exhibition and book project called “This Is the American Earth” with the West Coast outdoors group, the Sierra Club.

The exhibition was conceived as a compelling argument in pictures and text for the continued protection of America’s landscapes, representing its parks as a national treasure. However, as the Cold War progressed, the exhibit’s meaning changed as it was taken up by the United States Information Agency to promote American culture and values abroad.

This thesis reveals the real challenges in producing a photo exhibition and photo book in America in the mid-twentieth century, even for a photographer as well known as Ansel Adams and the former curator of the Department of Photography at MoMA, Nancy Newhall. With little access to funding, few exhibition venues for photography (especially on the West Coast), few collections of historical photographs to source images, and an unreliable market for photo books, This Is the American Earth is one example of the approaches, strategies, and collaborations that were necessary to be able to exhibit photography to a wider audience.

This research involved consulting several collections to include the Sierra Club archives (Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley), Nancy Newhall Papers (Center for Creative Photography), Colby Memorial Library, Smithsonian Institution, and the Nancy Newhall Collection (Getty Research Institute).

Access the paper in Toronto Metropolitan University’s online research library