Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico

Artist Ansel Adams (American, 1902 - 1984)

Date1941; printed prior to 1976

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage and sheet: 15 9/16 × 19 3/16 inches (39.53 × 48.74 cm)
Mount: 21 7/8 × 25 3/16 inches (55.56 × 63.98 cm)

Credit LineGift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Object number2005.27.656

SignedOn mount recto, lower right, in pencil: "Ansel Adams"

InscribedOn mount verso, center, stamped in black ink with black pen: "Photograph by Ansel Adams / Moonrise / Hernandez, New Mexico 1942 / Route I Box 181 Carmel, California 93921"

Markingsnone

On View

Not on view

Collections

Photography

Terms

DescriptionImage of a small town in a desert landscape along the bottom third of the frame. Illuminated clouds stretch across the center of the frame and a dark sky with a small white moon fills the rest of the image.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Twentieth-Century Photographers: Selections from the HPC. Columbus College of Art & Design, Columbus, OH, March 28 - April 27, 1996, no cat.

Majestic Landscapes. Spiva Center for the Arts, Joplin, MO, October 11 - November 25, 2002, no cat.

Rotation 2. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, October 24, 2007 - March 19, 2008, no cat.

Heavens: Photographs of the Sky & Cosmos. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, June 15 - November 13, 2011, no cat.

Gallery Label

According to his own recollection, Ansel Adams encountered this scene at dusk as he drove into a small northern New Mexico town. Scrambling to catch the fleeting light as a new moon rose in the sky against the waning daylight, Adams stopped his car, grabbed his equipment, and made an exposure with seconds to spare. Adams printed this photograph to dramatize atmospheric effects. He darkened the sky, amplified the luminance of clouds, and intensified the whiteness of cemetery crosses and snowcapped Sangre de Cristo mountains in the distance.

Provenance

Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, MO, 1990;
Given by Hallmark Cards, Inc. to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2005.

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