Ansel Adams: A Biography

Ansel Adams: A Biography

From Booklist Alinder was Adams' assistant in his later years, helping curate the great photographer's 40,000 negatives and coauthor his best-selling autobiography. Now, a dozen years after Adams' death, Alinder presents a more complete portrait than Adams allowed. Adams came to photography at the tender age of 14, and it will come as no surprise that he was inspired to pick up the camera by his beloved Yosemite, his wellspring. Adams recognized early on that photography was his medium not for recording reality but for communicating his emotions. As Alinder traces the straight-forward course of Adams' dazzling career--pausing for cameos of numerous influential figures, including John Marin, Paul Strand, Alfred Stieglitz, and David Brower--she emphasizes the connection between his stunning landscape photography and his zealous work with the Sierra Club. Alinder is as lucid on the topic of Adams' technical mastery as on his environmentalism and aesthetics, and she also tackles the muddle of his contentious private life with aplomb and candor. The Adams that ultimately emerges from these warmhearted pages is a man of "boisterous spirits" and irrepressible creativity deeply devoted to his vision. Donna Seaman In his 1985 autobiography, Ansel Adams presented a life almost as neatly cropped and printed as his magnificent pictures. Here, Mary Street Alinder--who collaborated with Adams on his memoir and was his assistant in later life--is not reticent about the major emotional episodes in Adams's life, including his marriage and extramarital affairs, and his not-altogether-successful fatherhood. She explores the major artistic influences on his work and gives in-depth profiles of the significant figures in his circle. She also explains the technique and style Adams developed to obtain his unique vision, as well as his uneasiness at becoming a commodity. Ansel Adams: A Biography is an intimate and provocative portrait of the world's most famous photographer. From Publishers Weekly Alinder was Ansel Adams's caretaker, nurse and executive assistant from 1979 until the photographer's death in 1984 at the age of 82. This deeply felt, unauthorized biography provides a much fuller picture of Adams's turbulent personal life than his 1985 autobiography, which Alinder coauthored. Adams traveled often, leaving behind his wife, Virginia Best, and their two children; his numerous affairs and continual neglect drained her patience and love, nearly wrecking their marriage. Growing up in San Francisco, with frequent trips to the Yosemite Valley that he would immortalize in crisp, radiant photographs, Adams witnessed the unhappy, formal, proper marriage of his stern, domineering mother and mild father, who usually addressed each other as "Mrs. Adams" or "Mr. Adams." His adult personal life was often in shambles, and he never found emotional happiness, according to Alinder. After 1949, she writes, Adams, paralyzed by fear of failure, suffered creative burnout and turned increasingly from photography to environmental activism and writing. She also discusses his formative friendships with mentor Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keeffe and with photographers Paul Strand, Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham. Photos. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Having coauthored Adams's Ansel Adams: An Autobiography (1985), Alinder is certainly in the position to write this new work.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review "A loving, minutely researched portrait of the photographer that acknowledges his humanity while confirming his enormous artistic contribution."-Los Angeles Times"Alinder writes like the close and discerning friend that she was...and provides a clear and endearing portrait of the mercurial artist."-San Francisco Chronicle About the Author Mary Street Alinder worked for the Ansel Adams Publishing Trust for several years and co-aut