Ansel Adams: Portrait of America

Photographs from the Collection of Anne Adams Helms

MONTEREY, Calif., June 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Monterey Museum of Art is very proud to present, Ansel Adams: Portrait of America, July 10- October 3, 2010 at the Monterey Museum of Art-La Mirada, located at 720 Via Mirada, Monterey, California. Museum hours are Wednesdays-Saturdays 11am-5 pm, Sundays 1-4 pm, $5 general admission.  Free Admission to MMA members, children under 12, NARM, AAM members. For more information please visit www.montereyart.org or call 831.372.5477

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20100607/DC01035)

The Monterey Museum of Art is the exclusive West Coast venue for this exhibition of more than 70 iconic images. Experience some of the most magnificent landscapes ever captured by one of America's greatest artists. This rare opportunity, presented in collaboration with Ansel Adams' heirs, highlights all of the most canonical images chosen by the artist to become one of a very few Museum sets.

Adams's technical mastery is legendary. He reveled in the theory and practice of the medium. Adams developed the famous and highly complex "zone system" of controlling and relating exposure and development, enabling photographers to creatively visualize an image and produce a photograph that matched and expressed that visualization.

In 1978, Ansel Adams selected seventy-two of his most iconic images, ones that he wished to make available to museums and arts institutions. Although he was able to complete a substantial number of the prints, his death in 1984 curtailed the long-range plans for the project. As a result, only a few complete "Museum Sets" were produced.

"Visitors will experience America through the eyes of this genius in one of Monterey's most unique gallery settings-an historic mansion estate, the Monterey Museum of Art-La Mirada," said the Museum's Executive Director E. Michael Whittington. "This will be a tremendous opportunity to see and experience the essence of some of the greatest natural environments ever captured by a true innovator of our time."

The Monterey Museum of Art is devoted to the visual arts of California and collects and presents exhibitions on photography, contemporary art, works on paper and Asian art. The Museum was established in 1959 as a chapter of the American Federation of the Arts and is accredited by the American Association of Museums. Over twenty permanent collection and traveling exhibitions are presented annually in two Monterey locations: 559 Pacific Street and 720 Via Mirada. The Museum is open to the public Wednesday through Sunday. For more information please visit www.montereyart.org.

[Editors: Image and Adams' colleague interview available upon request]

SOURCE Monterey Museum of Art