|
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. |