Thursday evening students, faculty and community members alike filled the Meadows Museum auditorium to hear Dr. John Rohrbach’s lecture, “From Adams to Adams: Redefining the American West?” which concluded the Art History Lecture Series for 2004-2005 co-Sponsored by the W.P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies.

Currently, Dr. Rohrbach is the Curator of Photographs at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth. He received his Ph.D at the University of Delaware. Interested in photo history and a historian of American visual culture, Dr. Rohrbach’s lecture demonstrated his passion and knowledge of history and photographs.

The lecture focused on Ansel Adams and Robert Adams (no relation), arguably two of the most influential artists in Topographical landscape photography. These men helped define the beauty of Western America through their photographs.

Dr. Rohrbach juxtaposed the two photographers views on what exactly defines western beauty. Although both landscape artists, the subject matter of their photographs were very different.

In order to illustrate these differences, Dr. Rohrbach used a myriad of slides depicting both Ansel and Robert Adams work. The slides followed Dr. Rohrbach’s lecture as he distinguished similarities and differences throughout their photographs and publications.

To begin his lecture, Dr. Rohrbach gave background on the new topographics of photography. He defined this new style period as being dominated by human structures and “freely acknowledging the common place.” Dr. Rohrbach stated, the “Adams men have become the natural axis for this transformation.”

The transformation Dr. Rohrbach spoke of was the change from the world the way it was to the “new world.” This new world, as characterized by Dr. Rohrbach, embodied the “interest in the built environment.”

The industrialization that took place during this style period in the 1950s had many photographers out to capture it, but it was the Adams who made it history through their photographs. Dr. Rohrbach pointed out that “Robert Adams said in a letter to Ansel, ‘running around with the same name doing landscapes’”, while both mid-century modernists, each prescribed to their own style.

Dr. Rohrbach mentioned that while Robert Adams took “one or two steps back to level the details and suggest neutrality” Ansel Adams had a different style to his work. Ansel Adam’s work “celebrated the landscape as us,” Dr. Rohrbach said. “Ansel is the romantic optimist…Robert is alienated, pessimistic…isolates people in desolate settings.”

To prove his point, Dr. Rohrbach showed two different slides of each artists’ photographs of churches. Even though each Adams photographed different churches, the similarities and differences in their photographs became evident.

Dr. Rohrbach described Ansel’s photograph as “overt separation” and Robert’s work as “careful balance.” He then explained the different attributes of each artists’ work that made the pictures so different.

He explained how Ansel’s photograph of the church is “blanketed in crisp light amongst the dark background.” The angle of the dark background against the white church gives the picture “dimension,” as Dr. Rohrbach identified. “Is this church shut down?” Dr. Rohrbach answered his own question by discussing how Ansel had just made the church look abandoned by the position in which he took the photograph.

On the other hand, Robert Adam’s photograph of a Catholic Church was more “carefully balanced,” Dr. Rohrbach continues, “He steps back to include a shed and a sign that shows the church is still in use…and the neighborhood surrounding it.” Dr. Rohrbach stated that Robert pays attention to time and place, while Ansel “focused on the beauty of the form.”

Dr. Rohrbach continued to compare and contrast works of each photographer while showing slides of each of their works to support his argument. However, he concluded his lecture on how each humanist photographer has a “concern for the environment… and believes the earth holds a persistent beauty.”

To close his lecture, Dr. Rohrbach shows the major difference between Ansel Adams and Robert Adams photographic style. “Ansel leaves us out…Robert asks us to step inside.” “It’s not out there, but in here,” Dr. Rohrbach explained in his final point about the two modernist photographers who defined topographic photography with contrasting views and with different subjects while making their mark in the photographic medium of art.