Monolith: The Face of Half-Dome, Yosemite National Park, California

Artist Ansel Adams American, 1902–1984

Date1927, printed circa 1960

MediumGelatin-silver print, mounted

Dimensionsheight and width: 11 × 8 1/8 in. (27.9 × 20.6 cm)
frame: 20 3/8 × 15 5/16 × 1 1/2 in. (51.8 × 38.9 × 3.8 cm)

ClassificationsPhotography

Credit LineGift of the family of Julian T. Baker Jr. and the Estate of Julian T. Baker Jr.

Object number2012.1.1

On View

Not on view

Label TextA lifelong advocate for environmental conservation, Adams is known for his photographic vistas of the American West rendering nature pristine and in sharp focus. This career-defining image of Yosemite’s iconic rock formation Half Dome was created while Adams was hiking the area in April 1927.

Captured with a Korona view camera fitted with a dark red filter to increase the tonal contrasts, the image, as he describes, was meant to show “not the way the subject appeared in reality but how it felt to me.” Adams’s controlled manipulation and close-range verticality evoke the daunting monumentality of the brooding 4,800-foot cliff.
[L. Applebaum, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," 2022]ProvenanceCreated Yosemite National Park, California, 1927; printed by the Sierra Club, San Francisco, ca. 1960. [Andrew Smith Gallery, Santa Fe, NM, 2009]; Julian T. Baker Jr., Raleigh, NC; Julian T. Baker Jr. Estate; [Etherton Gallery, Tucson, AZ, 2012]; sold to NCMA, 2012 [1].

[1] Baker’s will stated that his entire collection should be sold by the Etherton Gallery and the Gitterman Gallery and the proceeds would go to the estate, which were then given to the family. The family then gave the NCMA Foundation a portion of the estate for the purpose of buying 25 photographs from the two galleries (specific photos that had been in Baker’s collection).

Published References“New Acquisitions / A Discerning Eye: Julian T. Baker Jr. Photography Collection,” in North Carolina Museum of Art Preview (Fall 2012), illus. 21.
Exhibition HistoryRaleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, “A Discerning Eye: Julian T. Baker Photography Collection,” June 17–December 2, 2012.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," October 7, 2022–May 8, 2023. Object Rights Statement

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