ANSEL ADAMS, THE UNIVERSITY, AND YOU
Exhibition of photographer's Rochester work opens October 12-14

A collection of River Campus photographs taken by Ansel Adams to document Rochester's transition to a unified men's and women's college will go on public display for the first time this fall, thanks to the work of a Take Five student.

Bella Muccari, a history and film studies major, is organizing the exhibition Ansel Adams and the University of Rochester: Negotiating for Art as part of an independent study project with Erika Wolf, assistant professor of art and art history.

The exhibition, which will open during the College's Meliora Weekend, October 12-14, is a photographic and historical look at the renowned photographer's visit to campus.

Drawn from about 140 prints, selections from Adams's correspondence with University administrators, and other materials, the exhibition will be on display in the Friedlander Lobby of Rush Rhees Library.

A few students pictured in Adams' photographs are not identified.

Muccari, who was first introduced to the Adams archive last spring while taking a tour of the Department of Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation, says recent students are largely unaware that such a collection has been housed at the library for the past 50 years.

"I couldn't believe that they had never been exhibited," Muccari says.

Commissioned in 1952, Adams was hired to create a series of photographs for a publicity and fund-raising effort to help offset some of the costs of merging the men's and women's colleges.

Some of the photographs were used in the 1953 publication, Creative Change, produced by the University. About 60 of the images were mounted for exhibition by Adams, but Muccari's research has turned up no record that the entire set has ever been displayed publicly.

Although the photographs have been part of the University archives for decades and are well-known to campus art historians, Wolf says Muccari's exhibition provides new insight into the work of the photographer. Adams has become well known for his commercially reproduced images of desert landscapes and mountain vistas, but earlier in his career he was highly regarded as a printmaker and teacher, Wolf says.

"Bella's bringing out a different aspect of Adams's work," Wolf says. "This is a commercial project for a paying client. People talk about Adams as being a commercial photographer, but this is commercial Ansel Adams."

Muccari hopes that alumni who view the exhibition will be able to help her-and library staff-identify some of the people in the photographs. While the name of nearly everyone pictured was noted at the time, there are a few images that have no identification.

She also hopes that the exhibition rekindles a sense of school spirit and pride in Rochester and its history, one of the original goals of the 1952 commission.

"Everyone should see this collection as part of the University's history," she says.

For more information on the exhibition or to help identify people in the photographs, visit the Web site at www.lib.rochester.edu/rbk/URArchives/adams.stm.

Maintained by University Public Relations
Please send your comments and suggestions to:
Rochester Review.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]