Arizona Highways: Celebrating the Tradition, The Photography of Ansel Adams, David Muench, and Jack Dykinga

Center for Creative Photography - University of Arizona

photo by John Hazeltine

Tucson, AZ

520-621-7968

http://www.creativephotography.org

Arizona Highways: Celebrating the Tradition, The Photography of Ansel Adams, David Muench, and Jack Dykinga

With the humble mission of informing readers of the state's road building efforts, Arizona Highways magazine embarked on a journey in 1925 that has taken it from a black-and-white publication to an award-winning magazine recognized throughout the world for its superb color photographs and features about the people and places of Arizona. The Center for Creative Photography celebrates the magazine's 75th anniversary by featuring the work of three generations of its photographers in an exhibition entitled Arizona Highways: Celebrating the Tradition, The Photography of Ansel Adams, David Muench, and Jack Dykinga, showing from February 19--April 9, 2000.

Encouraging a style that has long helped define a popular view of the American West, Arizona Highways has included the works of artists Ted DeGrazia and Frederic Remington; the photography of Josef Muench and Barry Goldwater; the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright and Paolo Soleri; and the creations of Native American artists Harrison Begay and Allan Houser . In this exhibition, three of the magazine's most important and influential photographers are represented by over twenty original prints each. Some of the most memorable photographs include original interpretations of Monument Valley, White House Ruins in Canyon de Chelly, the Grand Canyon, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, and Tucson's San Xavier del Bac. Vintage selections from the world-renowned Ansel Adams Archive are highlights of this presentation.

Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams is arguably the best known in the pantheon of American landscape photographers. His dramatic visual technique, coupled with a near missionary zeal for the natural landscape, helped produce some of the most famous photographs of the 20th century. Adams began his association with Arizona Highways in 1946 and continued to contribute throughout his life. Today, the extensive Ansel Adams Archive, housed at the Center, includes his fine prints, correspondence, negatives, and study prints. Notable Arizona Highways memorabilia is displayed in the CCP Library exhibition cases through March. (left: Ansel Adams, Saguaro Cactus, Sunrise, Arizona, 1942, gelatin silver print, 23.8 x 17.7 centimeters, 76:083:071, Courtesy of the Center for Creative Photography and the Trustees of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust, All Rights Reserved; right; Ansel Adams, Arches, North Court, Mission San Xavier del Bac, Tucson, Arizona, 1968, gelatin silver print, 24.3 x 32.2 centimeters, 84:090:190, Collection of the Center for Creative Photography ©Trustees of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust, All Rights Reserved)

David Muench

Son of one of the founding fathers of color landscape photography and Arizona Highways photographer Josef Muench, David began photographing for the magazine in the mid-fifties and continues to be an active contributor today. David raised the level of color landscape photography with a furious burst of creative activity during the 1970s, helping define the visual iconography of the American wilderness. His strong compositional sense and choice of viewpoint and subject matter set the standard for the next generation of color landscape photographers. (left: David Muench, Sandstone Window, Monument Vallery, Arizona - Utah, 1991 ©David Muench; right: David Muench, Sandstone Buttes, Lukachukai Country, Arizona, 1992 ©David Muench)

Jack Dykinga

Among the finest of the current generation of color landscape photographers, Pulitzer Prize winning Jack Dykinga adds his own unique vision to the heritage of fine photography established in the pages of Arizona Highways. A resident of Tucson, Dykinga infuses his color-saturated landscapes with a power that confronts the viewer with the sublime beauty and wild grandeur of the natural world. (left: Jack Dykinga, Agave, Baja Sierra San Borja, 1988, ©Jack Dykinga; right: Jack Dykinga, Dragoon Mountains, Council Rocks, ©Jack Dykinga)

The Center for Creative Photography is the second venue for this anniversary exhibition. Having debuted at the Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona Highways: Celebrating the Tradition will travel to The Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff in June, 2000. (see our article on the Phoenix Art Museum exhibition Arizona Highways: Celebrating the Tradition (12/7/99))

The exhibition is organized by the Center for Creative Photography, the Museum of Northern Arizona, and the Phoenix Art Museum in association with Arizona Highways magazine. It is funded in part by Eller Media company, with additional support from Pastiche Modern Eatery.

Also featured in the gallery is Looking into the Collection: Arizona, a selection of photographs from the CCP collections that presents diverse images of the social and natural landscapes of Arizona in over forty prints by as many distinguished photographic artists.

Located on the campus of The University of Arizona in Tucson, the Center for Creative Photography is a research institution and museum. The Center is free and open to the public. Pay parking is available in the Visitor Section of the Park Avenue Garage, just north of Speedway with direct access via the pedestrian underpass.

For further biographical information on selected artists cited above please see America's Distinguished Artists, a national registry of historic artists.

rev. 12/27/10

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