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During Nancy and Beaumont Newhall's first visit to California in 1940, Adams drove them to Edward Weston's home in Carmel, via Yosemite. On their way back to San Francisco, 'visually invigorated' by the experience, Adams and the Newhalls stopped several times to take photographs along the coastal highway, resulting in a series of five elegant and distilled 'abstractions' by Adams - the Surf Sequence. In making the Sequence, Adams describes how he photographed from a cliff top, 'directing my camera almost straight down to the surf patterns washing upon the beach below in a continuing sequence of beautiful images. As I became aware of the relations between the changing light and surf, I began making exposure after exposure. Though each photograph can be shown separately, a group of five displayed together has the greatest effect.' (An Autobiography, p. 200)
The Surf Sequence, has been likened to the paintings of Arthur Dove, whose work was being exhibited at Stieglitz's 291 Gallery during Adams' visit to New York in 1933. The images also seem to owe a debt to Edward Weston, with whom Adams made two expeditions to the High Sierra in 1937. Between these trips, Weston created a series of three photographs, Surf, Orick, (1937), visually ambiguous studies of advancing waves taken from a high vantage point.
When Adams showed Stieglitz the Sequence later, he did not receive the approval he had hoped for and supposed that Stieglitz considered them too decorative and lacking the spiritual component of his own Equivalents. Adams, however, required his photographs - even the most abstract compositions - to reflect his candid perception of the real world. Minor White understood this pragmatic approach when he suggested that Adams used his camera as a musical instrument to interpret a score composed by someone else, namely, nature.
Adams' extraordinary, five-part Surf Sequence is rarely offered at auction.
ANSEL ADAMS (1902-1984)
Surf Sequence, A-E, 1940
Details
ANSEL ADAMS (1902-1984)
Surf Sequence, A-E, 1940
5 gelatin silver prints, printed 1960s
each signed and consecutively numbered '6A-E/10' in ink (on the mount); each titled, dated 'c. 1936', numbered '(A)-(E)', '60-64' in pencil/ink and Carmel credit stamp (on the reverse of the mount)
each 10 3/8 x 12 3/8in. (26.2 x 31.5cm.)
Surf Sequence, A-E, 1940
5 gelatin silver prints, printed 1960s
each signed and consecutively numbered '6A-E/10' in ink (on the mount); each titled, dated 'c. 1936', numbered '(A)-(E)', '60-64' in pencil/ink and Carmel credit stamp (on the reverse of the mount)
each 10 3/8 x 12 3/8in. (26.2 x 31.5cm.)
Provenance
From the artist;
with Lee Witkin;
with Light Gallery New York;
to the present owner, 1986
with Lee Witkin;
with Light Gallery New York;
to the present owner, 1986
Literature
Adams, An Autobiography, Little, Brown and Co., p. 198 (four of five images); Haas and Senf, Ansel Adams in the Lane Collection, MFA Publications, p. 95; Szarkowski, Ansel Adams at 100, Little, Brown and Co., pls. 54-58
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