CINCINNATI, OH.- The Cincinnati Art Museum (CAM) will premiere an unprecedented exploration of the early career of Ansel Adams, demonstrating how, between 1916 and the 1940s, Adams developed from a teenage tourist with a camera into the country’s most celebrated photographer. Drawn from the definitive Adams archive at the Center for Creative Photography (CCP), Tucson, Discovering Ansel Adams will be on view from September 27, 2024–January 19, 2025.

The exhibition brings together approximately 80 photographs with unique ephemera including handwritten correspondence, snapshots, personal possessions, and photographic working materials. Featured photographs range from small, one-of-a-kind prints from Adams’s teenage years to jaw-dropping, mural-sized prints of his most iconic views.

Discovering Ansel Adams traces the artist’s professional evolution—sharing his journey from teenage musician to young mountaineer—as he experiences the American Southwest, imagines and learns how to communicate with a new national audience, and undertakes an epic quest to photograph America’s national parks.

Dr. Rebecca Senf, foremost Adams scholar, organizing curator, and Chief Curator, Center for Creative Photography shares, “After twenty years of research on Ansel Adams, it is a delight to share these spectacular prints and rare archival materials with the Cincinnati Art Museum’s audience. I hope that learning about Adams’s personal and professional journey, seeing rarely shown prints, and exploring how the prints were made will enrich people’s appreciation of Ansel Adams images they already know.”

Nathaniel M. Stein, Curator of Photography at the Cincinnati Art Museum, says, “It’s been a tremendous pleasure to work with Dr. Senf to bring the CCP’s unparalleled Adams holdings to Cincinnati. This exhibition has changed my understanding and deepened my appreciation of a figure I thought I knew. I’m eager for the public to share in that experience.”

The exhibition will offer insight into Adams’s experiences in Yosemite and with the Sierra Club in his formative years, his early forays in the art of bookmaking and his commercial endeavors in his beloved Yosemite National Park and elsewhere in the American West. These seldom-explored backstories lend new dimensions to the Adams we know, and to his guiding mission to communicate the power and importance of America’s wild places to broad audiences. Personal snapshots, letters, tools and working material provide an intimate look at the person behind the camera.

The exhibition will be on view in the Thomas R. Schiff Galleries (234 and 235). Tickets are $12, with discounted rates for students, children and seniors. Save $2 when purchasing tickets online. Admission is free for members. Admission is also free for FotoFocus Passport Holders from September 27–October 31, 2024. The exhibition will be free for nonmembers every Thursday evening from 5–8 p.m. and on Friday, September 27, 2024, and Friday, October 25, 2024, from 5–9 p.m. during Art After Dark. Photography is permitted, but no flash.

Discovering Ansel Adams is a Featured Project in the 2024 FotoFocus Biennial: backstories.