Leading the sale is the sublime early print of Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (below, estimate $700,000/$1 million). Printed near the time of the negative in late 1941 or early 1942, it is the earliest known print of this iconic image to come to market, and among only a handful of prints made prior to 1948 when Adams refixed his negative. The photograph exhibits the exceptional detail, subtlety of tone, and open foreground that characterize Adams’s earliest prints. In the following decades, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico became Adams’s most requested photograph and the image for which he is best remembered today.

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In his autobiography, Adams stated, “I knew that it was special when I released the shutter, but I never anticipated what its reception would be over the decades. Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico is my most well-known photograph. I have received more letters about this picture than any other I have made, and I must repeat that Moonrise is most certainly not a double exposure.”

In the late afternoon of November 1, 1941, while he was photographing in the Southwest on behalf of the U. S. Department of the Interior and the U. S. Potash Company of New Mexico, Adams passed the tiny town of Hernandez. Struck by the quality of light, Adams pulled the car to the side of the road and hastily assembled his equipment. He made his exposure in the day’s last moments without the benefit of his light meter. Before he had the chance to make a second exposure, the sun sank behind a bank of clouds, and (in his words) “the magical moment was gone forever.” The image perfectly captures a fleeting and ephemeral quality that gives the work its potency and power.

Adams took his first photographs of Yosemite National Park, a site to which he would return every year for the rest of his life, as a teenager on a family trip. After training as a concert pianist in the 1920s, Adams continued to photograph Yosemite while working as a custodian at the Sierra Club’s lodge. During the 1930s and early 1940s, Adams made many photographs from Inspiration Point, culminating in his 1938 Clearing Winter Storm.

Adams's first foray into making mural-sized photographs came in 1935, when he was asked by his employer at the time, the Yosemite Park & Curry Company, to undertake a series of murals of Yosemite for the San Diego Exposition of that year. He became an articulate spokesman for the form. About murals, Adams wrote, “I was fascinated with the challenge of making a photographic print in grand scale. Many of my large-format Yosemite negatives took on a new resonance in mural-sized proportions.”

The mammoth, mural-sized print of Yosemite Valley from Inspiration Point, Winter, Yosemite National Park (below, estimate $70/100,000) was one of a series executed in the mid-1950s for the American Trust Company for its offices on Montgomery Street in San Francisco. These murals were printed in sections by the Moulin Studios or General Graphics in San Francisco. The sections were so large that they were developed in mammoth trays, then mounted with wheat paste to Homasote board. The American Trust Company was later acquired by Wells Fargo Bank, and only a handful of murals remain in Wells Fargo branches today.

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Grand Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, 1942 (below, estimate $400/600,000), is one of Adams’s defining images and is offered here in awe-inspiring scale.  Photographed on commission for the Department of the Interior, this dramatic view of the mountains over Jackson Hole is believed to be one of less than 10 mural-sized prints of this image in existence. Another mural-sized print, Aspens, New Mexico [Vertical] from 1958 (estimate $250/350,000) is one of only a handful to have appeared on the market.

Portfolios offered in the sale include two of Adams’ most sought-after, Portfolio VI (estimate $50/70,000) and Portfolio VII (estimate $80/120,000). Also included are both the 1929 and 1930 editions of The Sierra Club Outing (each estimated $50/70,000); Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras from 1927 (estimate $50/70,000); and Taos Pueblo of 1930 (estimate $30/50,000).

The sale also features notable early prints including rare images from the 1920s and ‘30s.  These include Grand Canyon (estimate $20/30,000); Helmet Rock, Coast of San Francisco, presented in Adams’ original frame (estimate $20/30,000); Merced Peak from Red Peak, Yosemite, California, one of Adams’ earliest images taken while on a climbing expedition in Yosemite (estimate $5/7,000); and an image of a ceremonial Native American dance taken during one of Adams’ trips to the Southwest, Eagle Dance, San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico (estimate $10/20,000).
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