Taos Pueblo (book)
Encyclopedia
Taos Pueblo is a book by Ansel Adams
Ansel Adams
Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West, especially in Yosemite National Park....

 and Mary Hunter Austin
Mary Hunter Austin
Mary Hunter Austin was an American writer. One of the early nature writers of the American Southwest, her classic The Land of Little Rain describes the fauna, flora and people – as well as evoking the mysticism and spirituality – of the region between the High Sierra and the Mojave Desert of...

. Originally published in 1930, it is the first book of Adams' photographs. A seminal work in his career, it marks the beginning of a transition from his earlier pictorialist
Pictorialism
‎Pictorialism is the name given to a photographic movement in vogue from around 1885 following the widespread introduction of the dry-plate process. It reached its height in the early years of the 20th century, and declined rapidly after 1914 after the widespread emergence of Modernism...

 style to his signature sharp-focused images of the Western landscape. Because of the quality of the images and its place in the development of Adams' style, it has been described as "an astonishingly poignant…masterpiece" and "the greatest pictorial representation of the American West."

In the spring of 1929 Adams and his wife traveled to New Mexico to photograph the landscape there and to visit with friends. In Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...

 they spent almost two months with writer Mary Hunter Austin
Mary Hunter Austin
Mary Hunter Austin was an American writer. One of the early nature writers of the American Southwest, her classic The Land of Little Rain describes the fauna, flora and people – as well as evoking the mysticism and spirituality – of the region between the High Sierra and the Mojave Desert of...

, and within a short time Adams and Austin agreed that they should collaborate on a book about the area around Santa Fe. Austin introduced Adams to her friend and Santa Fe arts patron Mabel Dodge Luhan
Mabel Dodge Luhan
Mabel Evans Dodge Sterne Luhan , née Ganson was a wealthy American patron of the arts. She is particularly associated with the Taos art colony.-Early life:...

, whose husband Tony Lujan [she spelled her last name differently from her husband] was a member of the Taos tribal council. Through Lujan's influence, Adams was given permission by the Taos Indians to photograph in and around the then relatively unknown Taos Pueblo
Taos Pueblo
Taos Pueblo is an ancient pueblo belonging to a Taos speaking Native American tribe of Pueblo people. It is approximately 1000 years old and lies about north of the modern city of Taos, New Mexico, USA...

.

After taking some initial photographs, Adams contacted his friend and patron Albert M. Bender, who had previously produced Adams' first portfolio of prints Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras
Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras
Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras is a portfolio of 18 silver gelatin photographic prints made by Ansel Adams in 1927. It was the first publication of a portfolio of his prints, produced not long after he decided to become a professional photographer, and has since been called "a landmark work...

. Bender enthusiastically agreed to sponsor a book based on this new work, and he once again contacted his friends at the Grabhorn Press to produce it. Adams and Austin continued to work independently on their respective parts of the book; they did not see each other's work until the book was ready to print. Adams said he picked the final selection of images to match Austin's prose, and in part because of this her text is said to have "mirrored the sturdy repetitions of the pueblo architecture" as seen in many of the photographs.

In spite of the book's title one of Adams' signature images from the book was taken at San Francisco de Asis Mission Church
San Francisco de Asis Mission Church
San Francisco de Asis Mission Church is a church built between 1772 and 1816. It is located on the plaza in Ranchos de Taos, itself a historic district named Ranchos de Taos Plaza, about four miles southwest of the town of Taos, New Mexico....

, which is not part of the pueblo itself but is located several miles away. He was captivated by the massive walls of the church, saying it they "seem an outcropping of the earth rather than merely an objected constructed upon it." At the same time, the church was an embodiment of the on-going cultural conflicts in the area between the Indian and Hispanic cultures; it was a Catholic church built in Indian style and represented how the Taos Indians' survival was achieved in part through cultural adaptation by necessity.

Although it was published in book form, Taos Pueblo was illustrated with true photographic prints hand-produced by Adams. Adams insisted that the book have a consistent appearance throughout, and to meet his high standards a special paper was created that was used for both the text and the photographs. To do this he enlisted the help of Will Dassonville, a friend and producer of photographic papers in the Bay Area. Dassonville ordered a warm-colored, rag-base paper from a New England mill, then divided the order into two batches. The first went to the Grabhorn Press for the text pages, and the second was custom-coated by Dassonville with a silver-bromide emulsion. Adams was able to print directly on the latter paper, which had an exceptional tonal range and a matte surface, and develop it in his darkroom. Over a period of several months during the fall of 1929, Adams personally made nearly 1,300 prints for the book edition.

The book was published in a limited edition of one hundred signed and numbed copies, plus eight artist's copies. Each copy had twelve original prints. Bender set the price for the book at $75, an astonishing price during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

when the average annual income for American families was about $1,300. Bender, however, reached out to his wealthy friends, and within two years all copies of the book had been sold. Bender quipped "I note the Stock Market reports only Ansel Adams photographs as the sole commodity that is on the rise."

In 1977 the New York Graphic Society published a facsimile edition of the original, using gravure prints rather than original photographs. It was produced in a limited edition of 950 copies, each signed by Adams. In the afterward to that edition, photographic historian Weston Naef wrote:
  • “With Taos Pueblo we see a commitment to light and form as the essential building blocks of a picture. Every exposure was made in the most brilliant sunshine which in turn created deep shadows. Sunlight and shadow are at the same time the photographer’s friend and foe. Neither films nor papers can record the two extremes of bright sun and deep shadow equally well, and an unhappy tonal compromise is often the result. Rich shadow detail is here realized simultaneously with delicate highlights in a way that proves Adams’s native sense for the toughest technical problems of the medium, and how to solve them.”


In September, 2011, a copy of the original 1930 edition was offered for sale for $85,000.
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