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Pipes and Gauges, West Virginia, plate 10 from Portfolio V

Artist/Maker (American, 1902–1984)
Date1939, printed ca. 1970
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsOverall: 15 × 19 1/2 in. (38.1 × 49.5 cm)
Credit LineFriends of Art Fund
Edition9/110
PortfolioPortfolio V
Object number1971.29J
Status
Not on view
Copyright© The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights TrustMore Information
Ansel Adams is best known for his photographs of national parks, which cemented popular ideas of the majestic American wilderness and turned Adams into an icon of the environmental movement. Less well known are his photographs of industry, which he photographed on commercial commissions to support his family. In this photograph, Adams captures the grimy pipes and gauges of a West Virginian factory. With his signature eye for tonal values and composition, the artist turns the shadowy inner workings of the factory into an anthropomorphic object of aesthetic contemplation.
Exhibition History
Facing America: Portraits of the People and the Land
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (February 18, 2006 - December 17, 2006 )
Anthropocene Aesthetics
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (August 19, 2023 - December 12, 2023 )
Collections
  • Modern & Contemporary