Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams (1902–1984) was born in San Francisco, California, and worked primarily in the American West, especially in California and around Yosemite, which became the defining subject of much of his career. He is best known for his sharply detailed black-and-white photographs of landscapes, using the camera to evoke both the grandeur and fragility of the natural world. His practice centred on photography and printmaking, and his images of mountains, forests, and national parks helped shape 20th-century landscape photography. Adams’s works are held in major institutions including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and they remain widely collected by both museums and private collectors. He received numerous honours, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980. In the art market, Adams remains one of the most recognisable names in photography: demand is consistently strong, his prints are regularly traded, and the market for vintage and authorised prints is generally considered established and relatively liquid.