Name: Toby Jurovics
Occupation: Curator of photography, Smithsonian American Art Musem
Residence: Woodley Park, Washington, DC
Why I chose this picture: Like most people, I first encountered Ansel Adams’ photographs in publications by conservation organizations like the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society. I was a mountaineer long before I was a curator, and his photographs were reminders of places I had been, and places I wanted to know better. Winter Sunrise, Sierra Nevada, 1944 has been a favorite for almost three decades. Showing a pasture in the Owens Valley beneath the summit of Mount Whitney, the tallest peak in the continental United States, it is at once lyrical and majestic.
But the complex history of this photograph is generally forgotten. It first appeared in “Born Free and Equal,” Adams’s 1944 book documenting the nearby Japanese internment camp at Manzanar. The original caption read, “In the presence of the ancient mountains the people of Manzanar await their destiny.” More than simply capturing a crisp morning along the great flank of the eastern Sierra, it is a photograph that reminds us that the remarkable gift of the American landscape comes with a responsibility, to it and to each other.
Adams’ best photographs are both plainly beautiful and pointed reminders of our obligation to build what his friend, the novelist Wallace Stegner, called “a society to match its scenery.”
If you go
“Georgia O’Keefee and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities”
Through January 4, 2009
The Smithsonian American Art Museum
Eighth and F Streets NW
Admission: Free
More information: americanart.si.edu or (202) 633-1000
