The Tetons and the Snake River

Summary

The Tetons and the Snake River is a black and white photograph taken by Ansel Adams in 1942, at the Grand Teton National Park, in Wyoming. It is one of his best known and most critically acclaimed photographs.

The Tetons and the Snake River (1942)

Analysis edit

The picture was taken from an elevated point of view and depicts the Snake River in a mountainous valley. A dramatically lit black-and-white photograph depicts a large river, which snakes from the bottom right to the center left of the picture. Dark evergreen trees cover the steep left bank of the river, and lighter deciduous trees cover the right. In the top half of the frame, there is a tall mountain range, dark but clearly covered in snow. The sky is overcast in parts, but only partly cloudy in others, and the sun shines through to illuminate the scene and reflect off the river in these places.[1][2]

Art market edit

A mural-sized print of this photograph was sold by $988,000 at Sotheby's New York, on December 14, 2020, the highest price ever reached by an Ansel Adams work.[3][4]

Public collections edit

There are prints of this picture in the collections of several art museums, including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and the University of Michigan Museum of Art, in Ann Arbor.[5][6][7]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ "Exchange: The Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming". exchange.umma.umich.edu.
  2. ^ "Ansel Adams Photographs". National Archives. August 15, 2016.
  3. ^ "Iconic Ansel Adams image sells for nearly $1M at Sotheby's auction, total sales of $6.4M". DPReview.
  4. ^ The Grand Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, Sotheby's
  5. ^ "The Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming,". July 17, 1942 – via National Gallery of Art.
  6. ^ "The Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park". philamuseum.org.
  7. ^ "The Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming (The J. Paul Getty Museum Collection)". The J. Paul Getty Museum Collection.