|
1902 - |
Born in San Francisco on February the 20th, only child
of Olive and Charles. |
| 1906 - |
Aged 4 the young
Ansel is thrown to the ground during an aftershock of the San Francisco
earthquake, breaking his nose and scarring him for life in the process. |
| 1907 - |
Family fortune is
lost, never to be recovered despite Charles Adams efforts for the rest
of his life. |
| 1914 - |
Aged 12 teaches
himself to play the piano, parents arrange lessons |
| 1915 - |
Removed from
mainstream schooling, taught by parents, tutors or himself. |
| 1916 - |
Ansel's father
buys him a season pass to the
"Panama-Pacific International Exposition" an event which celebrated
the opening of the Panama Canal. Ansel goes almost every day for a full year.
On a family vacation to Yosemite National Park,
California his parents bought him a Kodak Box Brownie camera. |
| 1917
- |
Begins part-time work at Frank Dittman's
photo-finishing business. |
| 1919 - |
Joined the Sierra Club and became
the "keeper" of the Sierra Club's Le Conte Memorial Lodge in the
Yosemite Valley, a position that lasts for four years. |
| 1921- |
In the second summer in Yosemite, finds a piano for practice at
"Best's Studio", a Yosemite concession selling paintings, photographs,
books, and gifts. Meets future wife, Virginia, the daughter of the owner, Harry Best. |
| 1922 - |
First published photographs and
writings appear in the Sierra Club's "Bulletin". |
| 1925 - |
Buys a grand
piano as a part of planned future career as a concert pianist |
| 1927 - |
Takes first publicly
acclaimed photograph "Monolith, The Face of Half Dome" his first
conscious Visualization.
Meets San Francisco
insurance magnate and patron of the arts, Alfred M. Bender. Bender's patronage,
friendship and financial support eventually change Adams life by allowing him to
have the freedom and confidence to concentrate on his photography.
First portfolio published: Parmelian Prints of the
High Sierras
Meets photographer Edward Weston |
| 1928 - |
Marries Virginia Best in January.
Becomes official photographer for the Sierra Club.
|
| 1930 - |
Adams published his first book in 1930 after five
trips to New Mexico, Taos Pueblo.
Meets photographer Paul Strand
in Taos, this helps fix Adams on the course of photography
rather than as a pianist.
Begins
accepting commercial photography assignments, one of his first being catalogue
pictures for Gump's, the San Francisco specialty store. Commercial work
continues into
the early 1970s.
|
| 1932 - |
Forms f/64 photographic group
with Willard Van Dyke, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston, Henry Swift,
Sonya Noskowiak, and Jon Paul Edwards |
| 1933 - |
Travels to New York to meet
the photographer Alfred
Stieglitz whom Adams admired enormously and with whom he was to
develop a deep and intense relationship.
First New York exhibition.
Begins a gallery in San Francisco, "The Ansel Adams
Gallery." |
| 1934 - |
Elected to the Board of directors of the Sierra Club. |
| 1935 - |
The first of the books dealing
with the mastery of photographic technique, Making a Photograph,
published.
Daughter Anne born
|
| 1936 - |
Puts on a one-man show in New York
with the aid of Alfred Stieglitz. |
| 1937 - |
Moves to Yosemite
National Park to take over the management of the studio that Virginia's
artist father, Harry C. Best founded in 1901.
Fire in the darkroom - 20 percent
of his negatives destroyed. (5,000) |
| 1938 - |
Publishes Sierra
Nevada: The John Muir Trail. |
| 1940 - |
Teaches first Yosemite workshop,
the U. S. Camera Photographic Forum, in Yosemite with Edward Weston.
|
| 1941- |
Develops Zone
System of photography - a technique incorporating exposure and
subsequent development of the negative.
|
| 1944 - |
Work from a wartime photo essay
on the plight of interned Japanese-Americans exhibited at the Museum of
Modern Art (MOMA) in 1944 under the title Born Free and Equal.
This is badly received by those who only wanted to see the Japanese as
the enemy
|
| 1944- 1945 |
Lectures
and teaches courses at the Museum of Modern Art. |
| 1946 - |
Involved in the establishment of the department of photography
at the California School of Fine Arts (later the San Francisco Art Institute) at
the time one of the first of its kind.
First Guggenheim Fellowship, results in publication
of: Portfolio 1: "In Memory of Alfred Stieglitz" in 1948 |
| 1947 - |
Leaves Yosemite National Park to
set up studio in San Francisco (cannot legally run a business within the
confines of the park).
|
| 1948 - |
Second Guggenheim
Fellowship, results in publication of: Portfolio 2:
"The National Parks and Monuments." in 1950
Publishes Photo Series I: Camera and Lens and 2:
The Negative.
|
| 1949
- |
Becomes consultant
for Polaroid. |
| 1953 - |
Collaborates with
Dorothea Lange on a Life magazine commission for a photo essay on the
Mormons in Utah. |
|
|
| 1959 - |
Third Guggenheim
Fellowship, results in in 1960. |
| 1960 - |
publication of: Portfolio 3: "Yosemite
Valley"
|
| 1962 - |
Moves to Carmel,
California |
| 1965 - |
Named to President Johnson's
environmental task force. |
| 1966 - |
Elected a "Fellow of the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences" |
| 1967 - |
Influential
in the foundation of the "Friends of Photography" - became president
of this body.
|
| 1975 - |
Helps found "Center for Creative
Photography" at University of Arizona. Adams archives established
there.
|
| 1979 - |
"Yosemite and the Range of
Light", book published which was to sell over two hundred thousand
copies. |
| 1980 - |
"The Ansel Adams Conservation
Award" established by the Wilderness Club. Adams himself named as
the first recipient. Citation reads "...Ansel Adams - for your deep
devotion to preserving America's wild lands and to caring that future
generations know a part of the work as it has been...".
Awarded Presidential Medal of
Freedom from President Carter.
|
| 1982 - |
At eightieth birthday celebration
is presented the Decoration of "Commander of the Order of the Arts
and Letters", the highest cultural award given by the French
government to a foreigner. |
| 1984 - |
Dies on the 22nd of April 1984
aged 82
California Senators Alan Cranston and Pete Wilson sponsor successful
legislation to create an Ansel Adams Wilderness Area of more than
100,000 acres between Yosemite National Park and the John Muir
Wilderness Area.
|
| 1985 - |
Official naming of "Mount
Ansel Adams", a 11,760 foot peak located at the head of the Lyell
Fork of the Merced River on the southeast boundary of Yosemite National
Park, on the first anniversary of his death. |
| 1989 - |
"The Ansel Adams
Center", headquarters of The Friends of Photography, opens at 250
Fourth Street, San Francisco, with one of its five galleries permanently
dedicated to exhibiting his photography. |
Ansel
Adams: 2006 Weekly Engagement Calendar
