Highlights Archives
Newfound Photos of Ansel Adams at Work
Ansel Adams, arguably the most famous photographer of the 20th century, is best known for his stunning images of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and other Western landscapes. He also created the Zone System of photography for crafting black-and-white photographs that remains influential to this day. Society archivists recently uncovered striking new photographs of Adams at work. These images show Adams in his home, working in his darkroom, and taking photographs on location at Point Lobos, California, in the late 1960s.
How did these images find their way to the Historical Society? In 1990 the Society received thousands of boxes from Chicago's Navistar Corporation, the corporate successor to the International Harvester Company. The boxes contained documents, photographs, publications and films from the company's archives. The shipment was the most recent addition to the Historical Society's massive McCormick-International Harvester Collection.
Hidden among the millions of items in this shipment were hundreds of letter-size envelopes bearing cryptic numbers, each packed with strips of 35mm negatives. Upon first examination, archivists thought that the negatives were probably related to one or more of the company's magazines. But when efforts to match the negatives with magazine articles proved fruitless, they remained in their envelopes, more or less untouched, for the next 15 years.
Then, in the summer of 2005, a Society archivist received an e-mail from a retired journalism professor named Angus McDougall. McDougall had spent several years as photo editor for an International Harvester magazine called International Harvester World, and said he had information in his files that could help identify the 35mm negatives.
McDougall sent a few sample references as a test. One reference pointed to an article on Ansel Adams that had appeared in International Harvester World in 1969. It turned out that Adams was a customer of International Harvester — he drove an International Travelall station wagon equipped with a camera platform on top for use in photo shoots at remote locations. McDougall had been sent to California to photograph Adams for the company magazine late in 1968.
Using job numbers generously provided by McDougall, archivists were able to locate several rolls of film taken of Adams at his home and on location in California. With the exception of a handful of images published in the company magazine, these images have never before been seen by the public.
McDougall has continued to send lists of citations that will help Society archivists identify thousands of images taken for International Harvester World between 1955 and 1972, when the magazine featured human interest stories involving International Harvester's customers. The images produced to illustrate these stories document a wide range of people and activities, including farmers, factory workers, professionals, artists, truck drivers, celebrities and ordinary people from all walks of life.
More than 3,000 pictures from the McCormick-International Harvester archives have already been mounted online at Wisconsin Historical Images. You can browse through the best of them in the McCormick-IHC Gallery.
:: Posted February 20, 2006
|
