Robert Adams Overview

Adams, an American photographer who emerged as part of the photographic movement known as New Topographics. He was a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow in photography in 1973 and 1980, and received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1994. Although Adams was... [more]

Adams, an American photographer who emerged as part of the photographic movement known as New Topographics. He was a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow in photography in 1973 and 1980, and received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1994. Although Adams was born in the industrial town of Orange, NJ, his relocation to Colorado instigated his journey as a photographer. Adams soon became interested in documenting the landscape of the West from a neutral vantage point: "As I understand my job, it is, while suggesting order, to make things appear as much as possible to be the way they are in normal vision" (Adams, 1978). Consequently, his photographs are reticent, yet authoritative. As poet Robert Hass writes in Adams' 2000 book "California", "No photographer I know makes you so aware of the silence of the photographic image. In Adams that silence feels like a riddle." [show less]