http://bookweb.cwis.uci.edu:8042/essays.html (Einblicke ins Internet, 10/1995)Clark Kerr, President Emeritus, University of California, wrote the introductory essay, "The Yosemite of Higher Education", which provides the background on the centennial project and Kerr's acquaintance with Adams. He also shares his favorite Adams Yosemite photograph as well as his favorite photograph of the University.
Hear Ansel Adams discuss his favorite photograph of the University and give some thoughts on the entire Fiat Lux project: [365Kb Ulaw Soundfile]
Beaumont Newhall, for the estate of Nancy Newhall, and the Aperture Foundation, Inc., gave permission to reproduce the introductory chapter, "The Latent Image", from Nancy Newhall's biography of Adams, Ansel Adams: Volume One, The Eloquent Light. Her essay captures the vitality, creativity, and excitement of working with Ansel Adams as they traversed the West in his 1946 Cadillac with the rack on top.
Beaumont Newhall's essay, "Nancy Newhall and Fiat Lux," recounts how the Newhalls met Adams, and goes on to describe the continuing collaboration of Nancy and Ansel on a number of books from 1952 into the early 1970s. In a letter to the chair of the exhibition, Beaumont Newhall related that in the course of research for his autobiography he had come across his wife's letter to him which described the chance meeting in Santa Cruz where Clark Kerr approached Adams and Newhall to do the centennial book.
Photographer Liliane De Cock began her association with photography after being introduced to Ansel Adams by Brett Weston. Adams hired De Cock to assist him with spotting, mounting, and collating a thousand prints for Portfolio IV. Ms. De Cock was Adams' assistant from 1963 to 1971, the period during which Adams and Newhall worked on the centennial project for the University of California. Her essay, "Working with Ansel on Fiat Lux," and photographs capture Adams at work as he traveled California from redwood forests in the north to deserts and beaches in the south, exposing over 6,000 frames to illuminate the breadth and variety of the University.
Curator Melinda Wortz's essay, Ansel Adams and the University of California, is reproduced in full from the catalogue and contains many links to those Adams photographs which she examines in her text.
