PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE SOUTHWEST, SIGNED BY ANSEL ADAMS AND INSCRIBED BY CO-AUTHOR POWELL

ADAMS, Ansel. Photographs of the Southwest. Boston: New York Graphic Society, (1976). Oblong quarto, original russet cloth, photographic endpapers, original photographic dust jacket. $1200.

First edition of Adams’ luminous photographs of four decades, signed on the dedication leaf by Adams and co-author Powell above Powell’s inscription to noted Western historian Wilbur Zink, “For Wilbur Zink, with cordial regards [flourish] Feb. 6, 1993,” containing 109 splendid duotones (most full page).

To esteemed MoMA curator John Szarkowski, the photographs of Ansel Adams possess "the brilliance of a violin string stretched tight. It does not seem likely that a photographer of the future will be able to bring to the heroic wild landscape, the passion, trust and belief that Adams has brought to it" (Portfolios of Ansel Adams). "Adams elevated the act of photography to a religious experience" (Icons of Photography, 96). This splendid collection of 109 duotones (most full-page), from photographs taken from 1928-68, is accompanied by historian Lawrence Clark Powell's "Essay on the Land." "The selection of these images," Adams writes, "is a partial perspective of one man's vision and his response to the land and its culture." First edition; "first printing" on copyright page. See McDarrah, 3; Roth, 58. Recipient Wilbur Zink, a highly regarded historian of the American West, authored a history of the Younger gang titled The Roscoe Gun Battle (1967).

Only tiny bit of soiling to bright dust jacket. An especially memorable about-fine copy.