Prints & Photographs Online Catalog - Ansel Adams's Manzanar Photos - About

Ansel Adams Chronology

February 20, 1902	Born in San Francisco, California.
1916	First trip to Yosemite. First camerañKodak No. 1 Box Camera.
1927	Published his first photographic portfolio, Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras.
January 2, 1928	Married Virginia Best.
1931	Pictorial Photographs of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, a one-person exhibition, opened at the Smithsonian Institution.
August 1, 1933	Son Michael born in Yosemite.
1934	Elected to the Sierra Club Board of Directors.
March 8, 1935	Daughter Anne born in San Francisco.
1936	Exhibited photographs at Alfred Stieglitz's An American Place Gallery.
1937	Fire in Yosemite studio destroyed many of Adams's negatives.
1940	Adams selected as vice chairman of the new photography department at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Organized A Pageant of Photography at the San Francisco Golden Gate International Exposition.
1941	Hired by the Interior Department to photograph national parks and monuments. Developed the Zone System of exposure. Photographed Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico.
1943	Photographed at Manzanar War Relocation Center.
1944	Exhibited his photographs at the Manzanar Relocation Center. Published Born Free and Equal: The Story of Loyal Japanese-Americans. Exhibited Manzanar photographs at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
1946	Awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship.
1960	This Is the American Earth published with text by Nancy Newhall.
1963	Retrospective exhibition, The Eloquent Light, at the M. H. de Young Museum in San Francisco (the largest exhibit of a single photographer ever held). Began three-year project to photograph the University of California system. Published Portfolio IV, What Majestic Word.
1971	Resigned from Sierra Club board.
1979	Commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery to produce the official portrait of President Jimmy Carter.
1980	Received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
April 22, 1984	Died in Carmel, California.