El Capitan, Yosemite National Park, California
Ansel Easton Adams, American, 1902 - 1984
negative 1952; print about 1974-1979
Gelatin silver print
Sheet: 9 3/8 × 7 1/2 in. (23.8 × 19.1 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Gift of Jane and Raphael Bernstein
2019.50.1
Printer
Alan Ross
Geography
Place Imaged: El Capitan, Yosemite Valley, United States, North America
Place Imaged: To-tock-ah-noo-lah (Southern Sierra Miwok), Ahwahnee
Place Made: United States, North America
Period
20th century
Object Name
Photograph
Research Area
Photograph
Not on view
Inscriptions
Printed label on mat: Special Edition / PHOTOGRAPHS of YOSEMITE / BY ANSEL ADAMS / El Capitan / Yosemite National Park, California / Printed by Alan Ross [initialed] / from Ansel Adams' original negative / under his supervision.
Label
Emphasizing the pristine beauty of Yosemite National Park, celebrated photographer Ansel Adams shows El Capitan looming above the lush valley floor. In a more recent image, Len Jenshel depicts a road winding around the desolate terrain of Arches National Park in this wintry scene, disrupting the conception of national parks as undisturbed landscapes.
The US government established a national park system, beginning in 1872, in order to permanently preserve lands considered ecologically or culturally significant. Far removed from rapidly growing urban centers, parks offered middle- and upper-class Americans respite and inspiration. These iconic landscapes have become enshrined in American cultural identity. Yet national parks are a direct product of the displacement of Native peoples and have continually disenfranchised rural communities along their borders. Who, then, are national parks for, and how has that changed over time?
From the 2022 exhibition This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, curated by Jami C. Powell, Curator of Indigenous Art; Barbara J. MacAdam, former Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art; Thomas H. Price, former Curatorial Assistant; Morgan E. Freeman, former DAMLI Native American Art Fellow; and Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art
Course History
ANTH 7.05, Animals and Humans, Laura Ogden, Winter 2022
GEOG 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Winter 2022
ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022
ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022
ARTH 5.01, Introduction to Contemporary Art, Mary Coffey and Chad Elias, Winter 2022
ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022
ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022
SPAN 65.15, Wonderstruck: Archives and the Production of Knowledge in an Unequal World, Silvia Spitta and Barbara Goebel, Summer 2022
Exhibition History
This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 12 - July 22, 2022.
Provenance
Jane and Raphael Bernstein, RIdgewood, New Jersey; given to present collection, 2019.
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