Ansel Adams 1902-1984

Acquired by Margaret W. Weston from the photographer

Other prints of this image:

Andrea Gray, Ansel Adams: An American Place, 1936 (Tucson: Center for Creative Photography, 1982, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 20

Ansel Adams and Mary Street Alinder, Ansel Adams: An Autobiography (Boston, 1985), p. 340

Ansel Adams (Morgan & Morgan, 1972), pl. 29

Karen E. Haas and Rebecca A. Senf, Ansel Adams in the Lane Collection (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2005, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 27

Drew Heath Johnson, Capturing Light: Masterpieces of California Photography, 1850 to the Present (Oakland Museum, 2001, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 79

The image offered here was included in Ansel Adams's early 1936 exhibition at Alfred Stieglitz's An American Place gallery in New York.  Consisting of 45 photographs, only four of which were landscapes, the photographs were of disparate subjects. Many were closeups of man-made or natural objects to which Adams was attracted because of their texture or detail. Group f.64's principles are evident in the selection.  They are what Adams and the group described as 'straight' photography--sharply-focused, cleanly-presented images.

About Political Signs and Posters (Political Circus), Andrea Gray Stillman writes in An American Place,

'Adams recalls that he was attracted to this subject by the ironic juxtaposition of posters for the circus and political candidates: the title that he used for this image in the 1930s, Political Circus, reinforces the humor of the situation' (Plate 20).