ANSEL ADAMS, Yosemite Valley Evening, n.d., 5x7" Color transparency, Numbered 1 in pencil on recto of protective overleaf. Signed in pencil on verso of protective overleaf.

Evening and morning are the times when light is most emotive.

In 1993, John Schaeffer published a book of 20 of Adams's color images, which made it clear that Adams was a master of color photography. He made over 3500 color transparencies beginning in the 1930s, shortly after Kodachrome film was invented. Adams loved color and intended to write a technical book about it before he died. His primary problem with using color transparencies to make prints was the lack of control and the fugitive nature of the prints and chemistry. Rare transparencies such as the ones offered here are the true vintage renditions of this wonderful work, rather than the prints that Adams refused to make.

Adams, Ansel (b. San Francisco, CA, USA Feb. 20, 1902; d. Monterey CA, April 22, 1984) is the leading figure in photography in the twentieth century and the creator of the most famous art photograph in the history of photography, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941 as well as hundreds of dramatic landscape images.

His attraction to the beauty of the natural world and art was both instinctive and part and parcel of his childhood. Adams joined the Sierra Club in 1920. He found his true community among its members. Through the Sierra Club he grew interested in mountaineering and conservation, serving as a director from 1934-1971.

In the 1920s he practiced the style of Pictorialism, but by the time he helped found Group f/64 in 1932 he was dedicated to promoting the straight, unmanipulated photograph as an art form. He met Alfred Stieglitz in New York in 1933 and was given a one-man show in 1936 at An American Place.

Adams subsequently helped establish the department of photography at New York City's Museum of Modem Art and in the formation of the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson (1975).

Excellent. Minor wear.