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Robert Adams is renowned for his acute observations of suburban American life in Colorado Springs and the greater Denver metropolitan area, where he lived as a teen, and then for more than thirty years until 1997. While teaching literature in the 1960s, Adams began to photograph the surrounding landscape and its historical architecture. By the end of the decade, he had turned his attention fully to recording the deleterious effects of rampant commercial and residential building in a landscape that Jack Kerouac once likened to “the promised land.” The photographs from Adams’s long-term survey of his adopted home would be published in the books The New West, Denver, What We Bought, Eden and Summer Nights, Walking, which are considered classics of photographic literature.
For Robert Adams, the buildings of Colorado—his home for more than 35 years—have been among the most prominent subjects of his diverse body of work. As early as 1964 he began to photograph the state’s indigenous architecture, in particular the religious structures erected in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Hispanic and other, mostly immigrant, settlers. He viewed them with passionate regard, and with the belief that buildings, like art, can embody a culture’s aspirations and values.
Following a pivotal trip to Europe in 1968, Adams turned his attention decisively to Colorado’s new architecture. Although he decried the tract homes, highway overpasses, and other graceless examples of suburban infrastructure that were proliferating in the landscapes around Colorado Springs and Denver, he also knew he needed to “see the whole geography, natural and man-made, to experience a peace”—a peace exquisitely reconciled in his pictures through light and form. (Joshua Chuang)
Alongside Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher and others, Robert Adams participated in the seminal exhibition on New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape in 1975, which announce a new paradigm for landscape photography. Robert Adams received the Hasselblad Award, as well as MacArthur, Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. His works are in the collections of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Yale University Art Gallery, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Art Institute of Chicago, and Sprengel Museum, Hanover, among many others.
Born 1937 in Orange, New Jersey, USA.
Currently lives in Astoria, Oregon, USA.
Doctor in English at the University of Southern California, USA
Assistant Professor of English at Colorado College, Colorado Springs, USA
Lucie Award 2022, Lifetime Achievement, New York, USA
Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography, Göteborg, Sweden
Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, The Photographers’ Gallery
Citigroup Photography Prize
Spectrum International Prize for Photography
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award
Charles Pratt Memorial Award
Peer Award from The Friends of Photography
Guggenheim Fellowship
Colorado Governor’s Award in the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
Award of Merit, American Association of State and Local History
Guggenheim Fellowship
National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
Compositions of Earth, Robert Adams, Casa Mutina Milano, Milan, Italy
American Silence: The Photographs of Robert Adams, Nevada Museumm of Art, Reno, NV, USA
American Silence: The Photographs of Robert Adams, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA
Robert Adams. A Right to Stand, Fondation A Stichting, Brussels, Belgium
Robert Adams. Buildings in Colorado 1964-1980, Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne, Germany
The Question of Hope. Robert Adams in Western Oregon, Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR, USA
Robert Adams. The Place We Live, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada; travelled to Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO, USA; Los Angeles Country Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT, USA; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; Josef Albers Museum Quadrat, Bottrop, Germany; Jeu de Paume, Paris, France; Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland
Robert Adams, Fotografins Hus, Stockholm, Sweden
Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography, Museum of Art, Gothenburg, Sweden
Robert Adams. Seascapes, Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne, Germany
Robert Adams. Trees 1965-2005, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
Robert Adams. On the Edge, Fondation Cartier pour l’Art contemporain, Paris, France
Robert Adams. Pine Valley, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
Robert Adams. Turning Back, Center for Creative Photography, Tuscon, AZ, USA
Robert Adams. Landscapes of Harmony & Dissonance, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, The Photographer’s Gallery, London, UK and Berlin, Frankfurt/Main, Germany
Robert Adams circa 1970, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
Robert Adams. Turning Back, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, USA
Robert Adams. Turning Back, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany
Robert Adams. The Paradise, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
Robert Adams. From the Missouri West, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ, USA
Robert Adams. The New West, Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop, Germany
Robert Adams. Commercial/Residential, Roth Horowitz, New York, NY, USA
Robert Adams. What We Bought: The New World, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT, USA
Robert Adams. Places – People, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo, Norway
Robert Adams. Reinventing the West, Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA, USA
Robert Adams. Sunlight, Solitude, Democracy, Reed College, Portland, OR, USA
Robert Adams. True West, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX, USA
Robert Adams. California, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
Robert Adams. To the Mouth of the Columbia, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ, USA
Robert Adams. What We Bought: The New World, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
Galerie Meert Rihoux, Brussels, Belgium
Robert Adams. Listening to the River, Columbia College, Chicago, IL, USA
Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Robert Adams. Our Lives and Our Children, Musée d’Arte Moderne, St. Etienne, France
Robert Adams. West from the Columbia, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
Robert Adams. Listening to the River, Forum Stadtpark, Graz, Austria
Robert Adams. What We Bought: The New World, Sprengel Museum, Hanover, Germany
Robert Adams. Listening to the River, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, Germany
Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
Robert Adams. Listening to the River, Sprengel Museum, Hanover, Germany
Robert Adams. At the End of the Colombia River, Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO, USA
Galerie Meert Rihoux, Brussels, Belgium
Centre d’Art Contemporain, Brussels, Belgium
Photo Gallery International, Tokyo, Japan
Dean Jensen Gallery, Milwaukee, WI, USA
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR, USA
Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO, USA
California Museum of Photography, Riverside, CA, USA
Robert Adams. Summer Nights, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
Northlight Gallery, Tucson, AZ, USA
Robert Adams. Our Lives and Our Children, Moravian College, Bethlehem, PA, USA
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI, USA
Castelli Graphics, New York, NY, USA
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
Atlanta Gallery of Photography, Atlanta, GA, USA
Robert Adams. Prairie, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE, USA
Castelli Graphics, New York, NY, USA
St. John’s College, Santa Fe, NM, USA
Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs, CO, USA
Robert Adams. Josef Albers. The Discovery of Form, Zander Galerie, Cologne, Germany
Shifting Landscapes, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, USA
When Images Learned to Speak: Conceptualized Documentary Photography from Astrid Ullens, De Schooten Whettnall’s Collection, Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles, France
Transformations: American Photographs from the 1970s, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, USA
60 Years of Collecting: An anniversary exhibition celebrating the UMCA Permanent Art Collection, University Museum of Contemporary Art, MA, USA
MOMAT Collection, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
A Time of Gifts: Six Years of Photographs Given to the Collection, 2016-2022, SBMA, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
Resonances. Fundación MAPFRE Collections, KBr Photography Center, Barcelona, Spain
American Photography, Albertina, Vienna, Austria
BOOKS. An exhibition of books about art and art about books, Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne, Germany
Robert Adams / Sabine Moritz: Passages, Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne, Germany
Negativer Raum, Skulptur und Installation im 20./21. Jahrhundert, ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe, Germany
In the Sunshine of Neglect, California Museum of Photography UCR Arts, Riverside, CA, USA
The Beauty of Lines. Masterpieces from the Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Falla Collection, Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland
Autophoto, Fondation Cartier pour l’Art contemporain, Paris, France
HyperAmerica. Landscape – Image – Reality, Kunsthaus Graz, Graz, Austria
Land Meets Water: European and American Photography from 1860 to the Present, Artipelag, Gustavsberg, Sweden
Myth and Memory in Recent American Landscape Photography, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia
Take One: Contemporary Photographs, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, USA
America Is Hard to See, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, USA
Aperture Remix, Museum Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA, USA
Unbeugsam und ungebändigt, Dokumentarische Fotografie um 1979, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
Mémoires Vives, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, France
Prix Pictet: Power, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA, USA; travelled to Aperture Gallery, New York, NY, USA; Prix Pictet, Zurich, Switzerland
An Enduring Vision. Photographs from the Lane Collection, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Boston, MA, USA
At the Window: The Photographer’s View, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Looking at the New West Contemporary Landscape Photography, Fralin Museum of Art, Charlottesville, VA, USA
30x: Three Decades, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA, USA
Shared Vision, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ, USA
true stories, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany
Photography Calling!, Sprengel Museum, Hanover, Germany
In Focus, The Sky, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA, USA
New Topographics, Netherlands Photo Museum, Rotterdam, Netherlands
American Documents, FotoMuseum Antwerp, Belgium
New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California; travelled to San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, USA
Into the Sunset – Photography’s Image of the American West, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
Oceans, Rivers, and Skies: Ansel Adams, Robert Adams, and Alfred Stieglitz, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., USA
What does the Jellyfish want?, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
Nothing and Everything: Drawing, Painting, Photography and Sculpture, 1896–2006, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA; travelled to Peter Freeman Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Where Rivers Join the Sea: Photographs by Robert Adams and Marcos Zimmerman, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, USA
Twilight: Photography in the Magic Hour, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
Tiefenschärfe, Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany
Ectopia: The Second ICP Triennial of Photography and Video, International Center of Photography, New York, NY, USA
60th Anniversary Show, Gimpel Fils, London, UK
Some Trees, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, Germany
Nine Abstract Artists, Osborne Samuel / Scolar Fine Art, London, UK
Open Spaces, P.S. 1, New York, NY, USA
Citigroup Photography Prize, The Photographer’s Gallery, London, UK
Glorious Harvest: Photographs from the Michael E. Hoffman Tribute Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Verne Dawson, Robert Adams, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
Cruel and Tender: The Real in the 20th Century Photograph, Tate Modern, London, UK; travelled to Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
Jede Fotografie ein Bild – Siemens Fotosammlung, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany
Adams, Brohm, Berges, Fuchs, Nieweg – Landschaft, Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven, Germany
Settings and Players, White Cube, London, UK
Das Museum unserer Wünsche, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
Amerikanische Fotografie um 1970, Mai 36 Galerie, Zurich, Switzerland
How You Look At It, Sprengel Museum, Hanover, Germany
The American Century Art and Culture 1900-2000, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, USA
Measure of Nature, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
Sea Change, Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ, USA
Waterproof, Belem Cultural Center, Lisbon, Portugal
Documenta 10, Kassel, Germany
The View from Denver, Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO, USA
Frac Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France
Crossing the Frontier, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, USA
Perpetual Mirage, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, USA
Silent Witness, Various locations, sponsored by the United Nations
Sea Sights, Offshore Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Hidden Faces, Paul Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Critical Landscapes, Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, Japan
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada
University Corporation of Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA
Lowinsky Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Esders Gallery, Paris, France
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
Robert Adams / Wim Wenders: Photographs of the American West, Amerika-Haus, Berlin, Germany
Mehr als ein Bild, Sprengel Museum, Hanover, Germany
A History of Oregon Photography, Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR, USA
Lowinsky Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Pleasures and Terrors of Domestic Comfort, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
The Kiss of Apollo, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
Timothy O’Sullivan and Robert Adams, Turner/Krull Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Visions / Revisions, Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO, USA
Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, PA, USA
The Indomitable Spirit, International Center of Photography, New York, NY, USA
Passages de l’Image, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, France
Notes for Friends, James/Schubert Gallery, Houston, TX, USA
On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: 150 Years of Photography, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., USA
Photography Until Now, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
Photography Now, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
Une Autre Objectivité, Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Paris, France
Decade by Decade, Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ, USA
The Art of Photography 1839-1989, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, USA
The New American Landscape, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, USA
Picturing California, Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA, USA
Night Light, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, USA
Nuovo Paesaggio Americano, Museo Fortuny, Venice, Italy
American Photographs, 1930-1986, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
Artists in Mid-Career, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA, USA
Australian National Gallery, Canberra, Australia
Looking at the American Land, Ohio Wesleyan University, OH, USA
Views and Visions, International Center of Photography, New York, NY, USA
Western Spaces, Burden Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Robert Adams / Albert Renger-Patzsch, Kunstverein München e.V., Munich, Germany
Three Americans, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
Automobile and Culture, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Slices of Time: California Landscapes, Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA, USA
American Landscapes, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
The Whitney Biennale, Whitney Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA
Contemporary American Photographic Works, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, USA
Photography for Collectors, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
14 American Photographers, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD, USA
New Topographics, George Eastman House, Rochester, New York, NY, USA
Contemporary Photographs, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ, USA
New Acquisitions, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
Landscape / Cityscape, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA
Robert Adams / Emmet Gowin, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
New Acquisitions, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
Documenta 3, Kassel, Germany
31th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
Robert Adams: Los Angeles Spring, Steidl Publishers, Göttingen, Germany
Robert Adams: On Lookout Mountain, Steidl Publishers, Göttingen, Germany
Robert Adams: Eden, Steidl Publishers, Göttingen, Germany
Robert Adams: Summer Nights, Walking, Steidl Publishers, Göttingen, Germany
Joshua Chuang and Robert Adams: Boats, Books, Birds, Steidl Publishers, Göttingen, Germany
Robert Adams: An Old Forest Road, exh. cat., Galerie Thomas Zander, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne, Germany
Robert Adams: Buildings in Colorado, 1964-1980, exh. cat., Galerie Thomas Zander, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne, Germany
The Place We Live: A Retrospective Selection of Photographs, 1964-2009 (new edition), Steidl Publishers, Göttingen, Germany
Denver (new edition, Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado in cooperation with Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, California
The Place We Live: A Retrospective Selection of Photographs, 1964-2009, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
What Can We Believe Where? Photographs of the American West, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
Denver: A Photographic Survey of the Metropolitan Area (revised edition), Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
Summer Nights, Aperture, New York and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
What We Bought: The New World, Scenes From the Denver Metropolitan Area, 1970 -1974, (2nd edition), Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
The New West (3rd edition), Aperture, New York
Time Passes, Steidl Publishers, Göttingen, Germany
Manzanita, Nazraeli Press
Interiors 1973-1974, Nazraeli Press
Along Some Rivers, Aperture, New York
Turning Back, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, California
A Portrait in Landscapes, Nazraeli Press
Pine Valley, Nazraeli Press
Commercial Residential: Landscapes Along the Colorado Front Range, 1968-1972, Roth Horowitz, PPP Editions, New York
Alders, Nazraeli Press
Boddhisattva, Nazraeli Press
Reinventing the West, Addison Gallery of American Art, Massachusetts
Sunlight, Solitude, Democracy, Home… Photographs by Robert Adams, Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery / Reed College, Portland, Oregon
California, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
The New West (2nd edition), Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne, Germany
Eden, Roth Horowitz, New York
Notes for Friends, University Press of Colorado
I Hear the Leaves and Love the Light, Nazraeli Press
Essais sur le Beau en Photographie, Fanlac, France
Beauty in Photography, Aperture, New York
West from the Columbia, Aperture, New York
Cottonwoods, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
What We Bought: The New World: Denver 1973-1974
La Bellezza in Fotografia, Bollati Boringhieri, Italy
Listening to the River: Seasons in the American West, Aperture, New York
Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews, Aperture, New York
To Make It Home: Photographs of the American West, Aperture, New York
Perfect Times, Perfect Places, Aperture, New York
Los Angeles Spring, Aperture, New York
Summer Nights, Aperture, New York
Our Lives and Our Children: Photographs Taken Near the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant, Aperture, New York
The American Space (Introduction) Wesleyan University Press, Connecticut
Beauty in Photography: Essays in Defense of Traditional Values, Aperture, New York
From the Missouri West, Aperture, New York
Prairie, The Denver Art Museum, Colorado
Denver: A Photographic Survey of the Metropolitan Area, Colorado Associated University Press, Boulder, Colorado
The New West: Landscapes Along the Colorado Front Range, Colorado Associated Univ. Press, Boulder, Colorado
The Architecture and Art of Early Hispanic Colorado, Colorado Associated Univ. Press, Boulder, Colorado
White Churches of the Plains: Examples from Colorado, Colorado Assoc. University Press, Boulder, Colorado
Addison Gallery of American Art, Massachusetts
Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, New York
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona
Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois
Australian National Gallery, Canberra, Australia
Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland
Boulder Public Library, Colorado
Bowdoin College, Maine
Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, Canada
Chase Manhattan Bank, New York
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio
Colgate University, New York
Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Colorado
Colorado State Museum, Denver, Colorado
Denver Art Museum, Colorado
Fond Regional d’Art Contemporain Champagne Ardennes (Reims), France
Fond Regional d’Art Contemporain Lorraine (Metz), France
Fond Regional d’Art Contemporain Rhone-Alps (Musee d’Art Moderne, Saint Etienne), France
Fond National d’Art Moderne, Paris, France
International Museum of Photography, Eastman House, Rochester, New York
Israel Art Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
J. Paul Getty Museum, California
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California
Madison Art Center, Madison, Wisconsin
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, California
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada
Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, Nevada
New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico
Oakland Museum of Art, California
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania
Portland Art Museum, Oregon
Princeton University, New Jersey
Seattle Art Museum, Washington
Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Lincoln, Nevada
Sprengel Museum Hanover, Germany
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany
Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, Japan
University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
Visual Studies Workshop, New York
Washington Art Consortium, Seattle, Washington
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Williams College, Massachusetts
Yale University Art Gallery, Connecticut
Zander Galerie
Schönhauser Straße 8
50968 Cologne
Germany
Zander Galerie
6 Rue Jacob
75006 Paris
France
