This book is another lesson from John Szarkowski on how to write about the ineffable. However, it is a catalog of a show that is simply beyond description and contains much that is not in the book. Do not buy the book as a substitute.
As a catalog it is good preparation for the show, even for this reader who saw Eloquent Light in 1963 and has been making photographs for 40 years in same locales as Adams. You won't find any massage for Zone-Heads, little Sierra Club poster art and almost no view camera cult food at all. Instead there is one powerful illustration after another of the evolution of an artist. Szarkowski uses his erudtion to place Adams in the art history of his time and the developing culture of the West Coast of which he was a part. He opens many many subjects and leaves us to flip through the book for illustration. He always raises more questions than he answers. He is a great teacher and has made sense of the nonsense about Adams that has accumulated over the years. Anyone with a pulse should be stimulated to see the show and investigate Weston, Strand, Stieglitz and others as well.
There is one understandable omission from the book that should have been in the show. There is none of Adams' color work in either. In the book "Ansel Adams In Color" are a couple of color plates done at the same time as some of the black and white images used in current show and catalog to illustrated Adams' style. The color plates show dramatically how Adams turned a three dimensional landscape into a powerful two dimensional graphic work of art. They also show those who have not been here just how dramatically colorful it is. In a very real sense, Adams had to overcome the color to see his subjects.
Another major part of the show that had to be omitted is the entire first room containing the works of other artists of Adams' time. Works of Marin, Hartley, O'Keeffe, Dove and several other of Adams' contemporaries and friends are the context in which he worked. Readers can look them up if they can't come to the show.
Szarkowski is at his best in this book in comparing Adams with Weston. I know of no other historian who so clearly shows what each was after and how these two artists and ultimately friends sometimes fed on each other. Szarkowski shows their portraits of each other to punctuate their differences. It is much more effective in the book than the show where the point is lost in the scale and depth of the presentation.
Finally, Szarkowski does justice to the network of friends, patrons and institutions that made California's art Californian. Any art historian or photography teacher must read this book.
Above all, use it to prep for the show. Then heed Mark Twain's caution and follow his example. Bring an extra sweater to San Francisco and see the show, and like Twain, buy a round-trip ticket.
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Top reviews from other countries
Mr. Gareth Williams
Best book at a good price
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 2, 2014