Mt. McKinley and Wonder Lake, Alaska

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Mt. McKinley and Wonder Lake, Alaska

Artist Ansel Easton Adams (American, 1902-1984)

Date1947 (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

1971.173

Not on View

Label TextThe photography of subjects that include movement, as in surf on a beach, requires luck and patience. Ansel Adams wrote: In subjects of this type there are many flowing, intertwining lines and surges of white and gray; the photographer must be alert to the combinations confronting him, and must try to anticipate the position of these moving shapes in time. While on a Guggenheim Fellowship trip in the summer of 1948, Ansel Adams had the good fortune to capture Mount McKinley without the usual Arctic summer haze and clouds. In midsummer, clear weather in Denali National Park is rare and the visitor can expect to see horizons only in the early morning and late evening hours. In the land of the ‘eternal sun’, this photograph was made at about 1:30 on a July morning. Thanks to Adams’ technical virtuosity and sensitive eye, this dramatic image of the highest peak in North America remains a profound reminder of the beauty of the earth and the importance of nature in our lives. While in Alaska, mosquitoes proved to be a big problem for the photographer. “In reversing the back of my camera I have trapped them in the bellows and they came to rest on the film, appearing as silhouettes of airplanes in the sky of the negatives.”Exhibition HistoryTMA, The Enduring Land: Adamsand the Westons Oct. 22,1977 - Dec. 4,1977.
TMA , Ansel Adams, June 30 - Sept. 24 2006.

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

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