Abstract
During a remarkable period of growth for the Sierra Club during the Cold War, the club sponsored This Is the American Earth in 1954, a collaborative project between Ansel Adams and Nancy Newhall that resulted in a 1955 exhibition of photographs and a 1960 photobook on the theme of nature conservation. The two productions of photography provide a crucial opportunity to examine how the medium was employed as a campaign tool and an instrument of propaganda over a period of six years. Yet, the project has been almost exclusively defined by its 1960 book. This thesis aims to recuperate the message and import of the 1955 exhibition to determine the function of the entire project, significantly revealing that in addition to being a social and political device, This Is the American Earth marked a critical point in Adams’s and Newhall’s ongoing battle for photography’s recognition as a fine art.
Highlights
Beginning in 1954, the American landscape photographer Ansel Adams (1902-1984) and the writer, editor, and photography curator Nancy Newhall (1908-1974) began working together on a nature conservation-themed project called This Is the American Earth sponsored by the California outdoors group, the Sierra Club, in which Adams was a long-standing member
The project emerges as a significant example of what Adams and Newhall envisioned for photography in their pursuit to improve American society and generate wide acceptance for photography as a fine art, and both the exhibition and book provide a crucial opportunity to examine how photography intersected with the rise of modern environmentalism and the Cold War
In an oral history interview conducted by the Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley, Adams characterized This Is the American Earth as a “theme show,” a type of exhibition, Adams explained, that uses “photography for expressing ideas.”1 He continued to define the theme show by explaining its particular aesthetic: They were fine prints, but of a type
Summary
Beginning in 1954, the American landscape photographer Ansel Adams (1902-1984) and the writer, editor, and photography curator Nancy Newhall (1908-1974) began working together on a nature conservation-themed project called This Is the American Earth sponsored by the California outdoors group, the Sierra Club, in which Adams was a long-standing member. The second significant study appears in a chapter called “The Intangible Values of the Natural Scene” in Anne Hammond’s book Ansel Adams: Divine Performance, published in 2002.19 Hammond allots less of a discussion to Newhall and the exhibition, as she instructively associates the book This Is the American Earth with developments in the American conservation movement She delivers an informative close reading of the book’s images and text, but at times her interpretation of individual images narrowly focusses on Adams’s intentions and overlooks the greater context of influences on Newhall’s text and image layout. The project emerges as a significant example of what Adams and Newhall envisioned for photography in their pursuit to improve American society and generate wide acceptance for photography as a fine art, and both the exhibition and book provide a crucial opportunity to examine how photography intersected with the rise of modern environmentalism and the Cold War. CHAPTER ONE PERSPECTIVES AND MOTIVATIONS: THE SIERRA CLUB, ANSEL ADAMS, DAVID BROWER, AND NANCY NEWHALL. This chapter will illuminate Adams’s and Newhall’s philosophies on art and photography that were most relevant to their conception and development of This Is the American Earth (TITAE)
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