Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico

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Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico

Artist Ansel Easton Adams (American, 1902-1984)

Date1941, printed 1971

Dimensionsimage: 16 x 20 in. (40.6 x 50.8 cm)

MediumGelatin-silver print

ClassificationPhotographs

Credit LinePurchased with funds given by an anonymous donor

Object number

1971.174

Not on View

Label TextAnsel Adams recalled the day took this photograph: The making of this photograph…combined serendipity and immediate technical recall. We were sailing along the highway not far from Espanola when I glanced to the left and saw an extraordinary situation - an inevitable photograph! I almost ditched the car and rushed to set up my 8 x 10 camera. When Ansel made Moonrise, on that late October afternoon in 1941, he immediately knew he possessed an important negative. "I felt at the time that it was an exceptional image; there seems to be an almost prophetic sense of satisfaction when the shutter is released for certain exposures." Of Moonrise, the photography historian James Alinder wrote: He could not have guessed, of course, that it would become one of the best-known images in the art of photography. It is the first of his photographs to take on a life of its own, as masterpieces do. Moonrise is spiritual, redemptory of man and earth. It visualizes the basics of existence, ideas that are rural and in touch with the earth. The print is physically dominated by a black sky in an unusual use of space, but one essential to the spirit. The light on the crosses, critical to the image, disappeared as the sun set seconds after the exposure was made.Exhibition HistoryTMA ,The Enduring Land: Adams and the Westons Oct. 22,1977 - Dec. 4,1977.

Toledo Museum of Art, Refraction/Reflection, April 20-September 2, 2012.

Toledo Museum of Art, Looks Good on Paper: Masterworks and Favorites, Oct. 10, 2014-Jan. 11, 2015.

Toledo Museum of Art, The American West: Photographs of a New Frontier, January 15-May 15, 2016.