ADAM CLARK VROMAN No 761 Acoma 99 (Lower end of Horse Trail 1899 Platinum Print6.25x8.1 in. on 6.4x8.5 in. ASG# ACV/1218 In Negative LL 922 1/2

Alternate titles: On verso: #1092 Formations Near Burro Trail Acoma.

In this view of the trail ascending the Mesa of the Acoma Pueblo Vroman focuses on the stair step patterns of the rocks and the richness and harshness of the bright Southwestern sun.

Provenance: John OÂ’Hara Album. Reference: PPL print: No. 761.

Photographer and Bookseller Adam Clark Vroman (1856-1916) was the leading photographer of the Pasadena, California Arroyo Culture. He was the first important American photographer to use platinum prints to emphasize modernist tones and abstraction. He was the key Western American photographer using modern techniques and materials on living tribes and current traditions, rather than working in cultural preservation of a vanishing race. His landscape work is every bit as emotional as the later landscape work of Ansel Adams, Laura Gilpin, Edward Weston, and Paul Strand. In 1893 he moved to Pasadena and set up Vroman's Bookstore, still in operation, where he sold books as well as photography supplies. He photographed primarily in Arizona and New Mexico.

He was not set up to generate revenue from his photography and the vast majority of his work was given to him in albums to his photography collaborators, or to scholars and anthropologists. His primary archive of over 1,000 prints in albums are at the Pasadena Public Library and his negatives are at the Seaver Center, Los Angeles County Natural History Museum where the images are online.

Andrew Smith Gallery has been the leading dealer and collector of Adam Clark Vroman since the first album if acquired in 1980. For a more detailed view of his life, work and materials:
https://www.andrewsmithgallery.com/exhibitions/misc/western/vroman.html

Excellent. Minor wear rich tones light discoloration verso