Ansel Adams 1902-1984

(San Francisco: self-published, 1930, an edition of 8), a portfolio of 23 photographs, Parmelian prints, each signed by the photographer in pencil in the margin and titled by him in pencil on the reverse; together with the letterpress title/colophon, numbered '5' by the photographer in ink.  Small folio, green linen portfolio with flaps and ties, stamped leather title label on spine, no. 5 in a total edition of 8

Purchased from the photographer, early 1930s 

By descent to the present owner

The Adams portfolio for the Sierra Club Outing of 1930 was produced in the smallest number of any of the Sierra Club portfolios, a total edition of only eight.  A Sierra Club Bulletin of the time indicates that the 1930 portfolio was printed on a per-order basis, with Adams taking orders until 1 December 1930.  At the time of this writing, three of the 1930 Sierra Club Outing portfolios have been located: the copy offered here, number 5 from the edition; a copy in the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, number 2 from the edition; and a copy offered in these rooms on 1 November 1989 (Sale 5921, Lot 326), number 3 from the edition.  Although the Sierra Club Bulletin indicates that Adams originally envisioned a portfolio of 25 images, each of the three located portfolios is comprised of 23 images; thus it is assumed that the portfolio as finally realized contained not 25, but 23, photographs.

In 1927, Adams, with the help of his friend and patron, Albert Bender, produced the first portfolio devoted to the High Sierra.  For the making of this portfolio, Adams and Bender coined the term Parmelian to heighten the appeal of the photographs for art collectors.  The next year Adams was hired by William Colby as the official photographer for the Sierra Club's annual outing.  His first trip was to the Canadian Rockies for the twenty-ninth annual outing.  Adams continued to work with the Sierra Club for a number of years, traveling many times to the Sierra where he was given free reign over his subjects.  During this period he produced a small number of portfolios for members of each party to purchase at the end of the trip.

'Seldom did I take specifically assigned pictures while serving as Official Photographer -- even then, the greater part of my work was entirely self-motivated.  I reveled in the limitless image resources of the world around me.  To commemorate the outing, I made a portfolio of photographs that I sold at cost, thirty dollars, to other members of the trip.  Its success was such that I also made Sierra Club outing portfolios for the 1929, 1930, and 1932 High Sierra trips' (Adams, in his Autobiography, p. 142).

The plates are as follows:

Rock Creek Cañon

Mountain Pine, Mono Creek

Mount McGee

Mt. Huxley, Evolution Lake

North Palisade

The Hermit

Dan Tachet

Devil's Crags

Down Bishop Pass

Devil's Crags, Detail

Lodgepole Pine

Bishop Pass, Inconsolable Range

At Simpson Meadow

On Muir Pass

On the Hermit

First Recess -- Mono Creek

Red and White Mountain

Mount Huxley

Muir Pass, The Black Giant

Sierra Meadows

Mount Winchell

Grouse Valley

Juniper