Ansel Adams Educator Packet

20 Pages·2007·3.06 MB·English

EE && MM
XXHHIIBBIITTIIOONN UUSSEEUUMM
RR GG
EESSOOUURRCCEESS UUIIDDEE

Ansel Adams
& Edwin Land:
Art, Science,

and
Invention,

Photographs from the
Polaroid Collection

InMvenAatniorsencl, AhPhd oa3tmo1gs r& a- pE dhJsw ufirnon mLae nth de2: AP4ort,l,a Sr2coiied0n C0coe7l lae ncdtio n is AY1Pon9o6sssee0itml,i vAgeitdee/alNa Nmetiagnst, ai soMitlnivvoeaeorl n4Ppx ara5inrn kLt,d a fCr noHadmal ilFf foP ilDmronol aiTamyr,ope id,e
organized andA spproil nGsoorrenidc kb, yB lPuoel aMrooidon light, 2003, o5il5 o, n1 9li.n5e xn 1, 52 5in x. 25 in.
Corporation. The exhibition is circulated by Curatorial
Assistance Traveling Exhibitions (CATE), Los Angeles.
MUSEUM RESOURCES:::: p. 1-5, 20

E
Preparing for your visit………...…p. 2-3 Educator Resources.….p. 5
D
August Heckscher Biography...p. 4 Future Exhibitions…….p. 20
I
S EXHIBITION RESOURCES: p. 6-19
N
Exhibition Summary…….p. 6 Art Activities………….….p. 10-11
I
Vocabulary……………..……...p. 7 Internet Resources…...p. 12-13
About Adams & Land…..p. 8-9 Images………………………....p. 14-19
Preparing for
Your School
Discovery Visit
Please note the following
guidelines to ensure the best
experience for both you and
your students.
Materials

The School Discovery Program includes hands-on activities which utilize a
variety of materials provided by the Museum. We ask that you remind students
to pay special attention to the proper use and care of art materials. Because of
the unique in-gallery working environment, extreme care must be taken.
Students will be asked to put away and return the materials at the conclusion of
each project.

Arrival

The Museum opens promptly at 10:00 am. Unfortunately, we cannot allow
groups in before that time. Afternoon school groups may be required to wait
momentarily while morning groups exit the Museum.

Conduct

The temptation to touch artwork can be great. It is important for your
students to know that objects in the Museum are original works of art that
cannot be replaced. We invite you to look and enjoy, without touching. Also,
keep in mind that the Museum will be open to the public during the program.
All visits include discussion, independent looking, and participatory activities.
Therefore we ask that you remind students to remain with the group at all times,
unless otherwise instructed. There should be no shouting, calling out, or running
in the galleries.

2
Personal Belongings
Please have students leave lunches and all other personal belongings on the
bus. In the winter months, coat racks are available for your convenience.

Photography

Photography in the Museum is prohibited unless prior
permission is obtained from the Executive Director three weeks in
advance of your scheduled visit.

Restrooms and Handicapped Accessibility

Restroom facilities at the Museum are located on the lower level and are only
accessed by stairs. If a student requires handicapped bathroom facilities, these
are located in the adjacent cottage building.

Name Tags

Name tags for younger students are appreciated by Museum Educators.

Smoking

Smoking is prohibited in all areas of the Museum.

Museum Educators reserve the right to dismiss any group
at anytime from the Museum if they feel the group
presents a threat to the safety of works on exhibition.
3
Who is August Heckscher????
Born in Hamburg, Germany on
August 27, 1848, August
Heckscher was to become one of
the foremost capitalists and
philanthropists in the United States.

August Heckscher was to fulfill the “American
dream” of financial success and personal
accomplishment. Arriving in this country, he
turned his attentions to industry and real estate,
becoming a well-respected operator and general
manager.

Toward the latter years of his life, August
Heckscher began the most important chapter of

his career. As a philanthropist, he focused on Penrhyn Stanlaws, August Heckscher, oil on
canvas, 47 ½ x 34 ¼ in., Heckscher
social issues and child welfare. Creating the Museum of Art, August Heckscher
Collection.
Heckscher Children’s Foundation (now home of El
Museo del Barrio), he sought to eradicate slum dwellings in New York City.
Heckscher established playgrounds in lower Manhattan and purchased
Heckscher State Park in East Islip, New York.

In 1918, he purchased the Prime Avenue property adjoining the Historic Old First
Church in Huntington, New York. He created a park for children and adults to
enjoy. In 1919, the Heckscher Museum of Art, a beautiful beaux-arts style fine arts
building, was added to the property. Heckscher’s original collection of 185
paintings and sculptures, including art from the Renaissance, the Hudson River
School, and early modernist American art, filled the Museum. When the Museum
opened its doors in 1920, Heckscher dedicated the Museum and surrounding park
to the people of Huntington, especially “to the little birds that migrate, and to the
little children who fortunately do not.”

August Heckscher passed away on April 26, 1941 at the age of 92. The Long Islander
described him in an obituary as “perhaps the finest benefactor that Huntington
ever had.” Since his death, the Heckscher Museum of Art has continued to collect
artwork in his legacy, with a permanent collection now featuring over 2,100
4 works of art.
Educator Resources
All materials are available for loan by classroom and art teachers.
A $25.00 refundable deposit is required for a two week rental.
Please call the Education Department at 631.351.3214 for availability.
EEEExxxxhhhhiiiibbbbiiiittttiiiioooonnnn----rrrreeeellllaaaatttteeeedddd SSSSlllliiiiddddeeee PPPPaaaacccckkkkeeeettttssss
Art History Slides are available for a variety of exhibitions past & present.
FFFFrrrreeeeeeee PPPPoooosssstttteeeerrrrssss VVVViiiiddddeeeeoooossss &&&& DDDDVVVVDDDDSSSS
A variety of art historical
Archived exhibition-related art
films are available for loan.
posters are available free of charge.

W !
N E EEEEyyyyeeeessss oooonnnn AAAArrrrtttt::::
A Collection Interpretation Game

This new hands-on curatorial game utilizes
collaborative learning as students in grades 6 to 12
curate their own exhibitions using images of works
in the Museum’s Permanent Collection! Full-color laminated cards
bring artwork dating from the 16th through the 20th century to life,
illuminating the Museum’s role as an interdisciplinary resource. Bring this
fun-filled game into your classroom! Games are now available for
borrowing. Please call 631.351.3214 for loan information.
5
Learn more at www.heckscher.org!
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Ansel Adams & Edwin Land:
Art, Science, and Invention,
Photographs from the Polaroid Collection

This exhibition of 86 photographs by American photographer Ansel Adams
showcases the uncommon beauty that can occur through the conjunction of
science and art. Here we see the artistic outcomes of the meeting of two key
figures: Ansel Adams, famed photographer, and Edwin Land, scientist and
founder of the Polaroid Corporation.

In 1948, the art historian Clarence Kennedy, who was a colleague of scientist
Edwin H. Land, invited the photographer Ansel Adams to Land’s factory in
Cambridge, Massachusetts to view the first Polaroid Land cameras. After that
visit, Adams enthusiastically wrote to Land: “I look forward to trying the camera
out… I am tremendously excited about the actual use in the field and studio. I
think it promises to be one of the greatest steps in the development of
photography. I only hope it will not be presented as a curiosity. I think the first
presentation should include work by top photographers and show a broad range
of application.” So began a unique and enduring collaboration between artist
and inventor that showed what was possible when tradition and innovation
joined together.

Adams was hired by Land as a consultant to test new films and analyze results. Dr.
Land felt that the artist could tell us things about Polaroid products from a point of
view that would be quite different from that of the company's technical staff. He
sensed that artists would push Polaroid film to the limits and report back even the
most minute problems. Adams’ contributions led the way for Artist Support
Programs that the Polaroid Corporation continues to this day. Ultimately, Adams
sent over 3,000 memos to Polaroid.

With Adams’ encouragement, Land began to collect prints from photographers
such as Edward Weston, Margaret Bourke-White, Imogen Cunningham, and other
giants in the field of creative photography. These images formed the core of
what would later become the Polaroid Collections, including works created on or
with Polaroid Materials by artists such as William Wegman, Olivia Parker, Chuck
Close, David Levinthal, Lucas Samaras, and scores of others from the
6
United States and around the world.
Ansel Adams & Edwin Land:
Art, Science, and Invention,
Photographs from the Polaroid Collection

Vocabulary Words
PHOTOGRAPH– An image, especially a positive print, recorded by a
camera and reproduced on a photosensitive surface.

POLAROID – A brand of material for producing polarized light from
unpolarized light by dichroism, consisting typically of a stretched
sheet of colorless plastic treated with an iodine solution so as to
have long, thin, parallel chains of polymeric molecules containing
conductive iodine atoms. Also called Polaroid Camera or Polaroid
Land Camera, the first brand of instant camera, developed by
Edwin H. Land and marketed since 1948.

LANDSCAPE – A work of art of an outdoor scene.

FOREGROUND – The part of a landscape that is nearest or closest to
the viewer, or in the front.

BACKGROUND – The part of a landscape that is furthest from the
viewer.

MIDDLEGROUND – The part of a landscape that shows the space
between the foreground and background.

SCALE – The relative size of an object or objects.

POINT OF VIEW – The perspective, or angle, from which a subject is
shown.

MONOCHROMATIC – A work of art that uses values of one color.

CONTRAST – The difference between dark and light.

VALUE – The degree of lightness or darkness of a color. 7
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Ansel Easton Adams

February 20, 1902 — April 22, 1984
Ansel Adams is an American photographer known for his black and white
photographs of California’s Yosemite Valley. His photographs are among the
best-known images in the world, having been included in hundreds of exhibitions
and publications worldwide.

One of Adams’ great gifts—and indeed his gift to photography—was his singular
sensitivity to the power of light. This quality allowed him to reveal both the
minute details and the grandiose beauty of our natural environment. Adams
said of his work, “My approach to photography is based on my belief in the
aspects of grandeur and minutiae all about us.” His photographs are widely
recognized for their superb aesthetic and technical qualities.

At age 17 he joined the Sierra Club, a group dedicated to preserving the natural
world’s wonders and resources. Adams remained a member throughout his
lifetime and served as a director. He became an environmentalist, and his
photographs are a record of what many of the national parks were like before
human intervention and travel. Adams wanted his work to be seen by many,
not just the few who could afford to purchase it. He chose several of his images
and arranged to have them printed as affordable posters and calendars.

Besides his own artistic contributions, Adams played an additional integral role in
the acceptance of photography as a fine art. The Department of Photography
at the Museum of Modern Art in New York was founded with his help in 1940. Six
years later, he started the photography department at the San Francisco Art
Institute.

The photographer published his very successful book Yosemite and the Range of
Light in 1979, which has since sold over two hundred thousand copies. Among
his many honors, Adams was the recipient of three Guggenheim fellowships
during his career. The Minarets Wilderness in the Inyo National Forest was
renamed the Ansel Adams Wilderness in 1984 in his honor. Mount Ansel Adams,
a 11,760’ peak in the Sierra Nevada, was named after him in 1985.
8
ABOUT THE INVENTOR
Edwin Herbert Land
May 7, 1909 — March 1, 1991
Edwin Land was an acclaimed American scientist whose achievements spanned
the disciplines of art, science, technology and commerce. Over his lifetime, he
was granted over 500 U.S. patents, standing second only to Thomas Edison. He
was also granted the Medal of Freedom—the highest honor granted to U.S.
civilians.

Land was distinguished for his inventions and contributions in the fields of
polarized light, photography, and color vision. Dedicated to applying natural
science to everyday life, he mastered the art of giving people what they wanted
at a price they could afford. He conceived and produced the first modern filters
to polarize light in 1929 and formed a company to market them for use in such
products as sunglasses and glare-free automobile headlights. He spent his entire
adult life experimenting and innovating in the field of optics, from producing
recording systems used by the U.S. in World War II to proposing the “retinex”
theory of human color perception.

Of all his accomplishments, it was through Land’s founding of the Polaroid
Corporation in 1937 and invention and marketing of instant photography that he
was forever immortalized. His aim was to create a system of one-step
photography, putting the chemistry of the dark room between two sheets of film
and producing a finished print in 60 seconds. Incidentally, the idea was spurred
during a family vacation in Santa Fe. His three-year old daughter at the time
asked her father why she couldn’t see the picture he had taken right away. The
first Polaroid Land camera was first offered for sale on November 26, 1948 and he
continued to improve his invention in the years following.

The enterprise he led for half a century was less a business than an institution
focused on making significant inventions. In 1975, he told a press interviewer,
“Every significant invention has several characteristics. By definitiion it must be
startling, unexpected, and must come into a world that is not prepared for it. If
the world were prepared for it, it would not be much of an invention.”
9
By the time Land left the Polaroid corporation in the 1980s, the company
grew to nearly 20,000 employees.
Art ActivitY IDEAS
For all of the following activities, first look carefully at various works of art
from the exhibition Ansel Adams & Edwin Land: Art, Science, and Invention,
Photographs from the Polaroid Collection.
The SCIENCE of Art
(Grades 2-12)
Ansel Adams is, of course, not the only artist who has collaborated with a
scientist/inventor. Many artists throughout history have looked to science
for collaboration and inspiration. Research such artists who have created
artwork based on a particular scientific subject and/or invention.
Suggested Activities:
(cid:1)
Hands-on: Have students create group presentations about the artists
and their artwork and/or create original works of art inspired by the
artists’ work.
(cid:1)
Interdisciplinary Connections: Work with science teacher(s) in your
school or district to make specific connections with the science
curriculum. Develop a project based on the artwork of an artist who was
inspired by the topics currently being covered.
(cid:1)
Community Collaborations: Visit a science museum or lab and base an
art project upon the information or subject explored.
PANORAMIC POSSIBILITiES
(Grades 2-12)
Ansel Adams is renowned for the grandeur achieved in his photographs of
landscapes. Discuss how he achieved this effect in his artwork through a
command of light, value, and perspective. Introduce students to the
term “panorama” and show examples of panoramic landscapes. How is
viewing a panorama a unique visual experience?
Suggested Activities
(cid:1)
Hands-on: Have students select an Ansel Adams photograph of their
choice and place a reproduction of it in the center of a piece of drawing
paper/canvas cut to panoramic dimensions. Extend the landscape out in
both directions to create an imaginary panorama in the media of choice.
(cid:1)
Technology: Have students photograph or bring in multiple photographs
of a single landscape. Use Adobe Photoshop or another photo editing
program to edit/manipulate the photographs. Experiment with “sewing”
them together to create an original, digital panorama.
10
8