Art + Design (Live Online) 
23 March 2023
Ansel Adams, Leaves, Mills College, Oakland California - Image 1 of 2
Ansel Adams, Leaves, Mills College, Oakland California - Image 2 of 2
Art + Design (Live Online) 
Ansel Adams, Leaves, Mills College, Oakland California - Image 1 of 2
Ansel Adams, Leaves, Mills College, Oakland California - Image 2 of 2
159

Ansel Adams 1902–1984

Leaves, Mills College, Oakland California

c. 1931-32 / printed c. 1937 or earlier
vintage gelatin silver print 7½ h × 8⅞ w in (19 × 23 cm)
estimate: $3,000–5,000
result: $10,710
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Stamped to verso ‘Photograph by Ansel Adams For Halftone’ and inscribed 'Leaf pattern... For Reproduction Only'.
provenance: Collection of Susan and G. Ray Hawkins, Beverly Hills
literature: Ansel Adams: An American Place, 1936, Gray, pl. 33 Ansel Adams in the Lane Collection, Haas, pl. 4 Ansel Adams at 100, Szarkowski, pl. 46

This work will ship from Los Angeles, California.

print

Leaves

Ansel Adams at Mills College

Ansel Adams made this work while taking photographs for a brochure for Mills College, located across the bay from San Francisco. Adams recalled of his shot that the light "was very subdued and I didn't have a very good meter in those days. I didn't want it to be dull, but I over-did it; the negative is very difficult to print. The whites are blocked a bit." 

Adams would make two room screens of this image, each six feet tall. He made the first in 1936 and it was accidentally ruined by mishandling. He made the second in the mid-1950s and kept it in his own living room. 

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