Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico

Artist Ansel Adams American, 1902–1984

Date1944; printed later

MediumGelatin-silver print

Dimensions20 x 24 in. (50.8 x 61 cm)
Frame: 28 1/4 x 39 1/4 in. (71.8 x 99.7 cm)

ClassificationsPhotography

Credit LineGift of Mary and Jim Patton

Object number2014.20.1

On View

Not on view

Label TextAdams captured this image of the moon over the horizon during a commission to photograph western lands held by the Department of the Interior. Taken just moments before the landscape faded into night, the photograph records the lingering light that dramatically illuminates the clouds above the snow-capped mountains and the cluster of crosses in the small cemetery.

Adams noted, “some may consider this photograph a ‘tour de force’ but I think of it as a rather normal photograph of a typical New Mexican landscape ... what may be drab and uninteresting by daylight may assume a magnificent quality in the half-light between sunset and dark.”
[L. Applebaum, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," 2022]ProvenanceCreated Hernandez, New Mexico, 1944, printed later; collection of the artist. Harry H. Lunn, Lunn Gallery, Washington, D.C. [Graphics International Ltd., Washington, D.C.]; Mary and James R. Patton Jr., Great Falls, VA, April 1977; given to NCMA, 2014.

Exhibition HistoryWashington, DC, Lunn Ltd. (Lunn Gallery), “Ansel Adams,” June 11–July 16, [1977]. [Per invitation in Patton Collection Artist File].

Chapel Hill, NC, Ackland Art Museum, “Defining Moments: Two Centuries of Photography,” June 8–August 17, 2003.

Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, “Night (Light),” September 30, 2017–January 28, 2018.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The Altered Environment," March 12-August 28, 2022.

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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