San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Ansel Adams’ stunning vistas soon available as postage stamps
A collection of Ansel Adams’ most beloved prints will soon become accessible to collectors at an affordable price.
The United States Postal Service is set to honor the San Francisco photographer with a series of Forever stamps, debuting next month.
The release is to be commemorated with a special event at the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite National Park on May 15, featuring park officials and Adams’ grandson, Matthew Adams.
The stamp series showcases Adams’ revered black-andwhite images of the American West, including Half Dome at Yosemite, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Sierra foothills. Derry Noyes served as art director of the collection for USPS.
“His ability to consistently visualize a subject — not how it looked in reality but how it felt to him emotionally — led to some of the most famous images of America’s natural treasures,” USPS officials said in a statement. “As evidenced by the striking images in this collection, Adams devoted much of his career to the advancement of photography as a fine art.”
Adams, who established the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) before he died in 1984 at 82, left a legacy of photographs celebrated for their sharp focus and rich detail. His work has been featured in the nation’s largest institutions, including the de Young Museum’s “Ansel Adams in Our Time” exhibition last summer, marking a full circle to his first museum show in 1931.
His extensive work for the Sierra Club Bulletin, nationwide museum exhibitions, lectures, workshops and his role in establishing the Museum of Modern Art’s first photography department highlight his influence.
Yosemite, which Adams first visited at age 14, remained a lifelong source of inspiration, providing the landscape for some of his most famous photographs, including 1927’s “Monolith, the Face of Half Dome.”