Artist Ansel Adams (American, 1902–1984)
Title The White Church, Hornitos, California
Plate Number Plate 7
Series Portfolio One: Twelve Photographic Prints
Date 1946, published 1948
Medium Gelatin silver print
Dimensions Image: 9 5/16 × 7 5/16 in. (23.7 × 18.6 cm)
Sheet: 9 5/16 × 7 5/16 in. (23.7 × 18.6 cm)
Mount: 18 × 14 in. (45.7 × 35.6 cm)
Credit Line Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University
Accession Number 81.48.1G
About this Work
One of the founding members of the California-based Group f/64, Ansel Adams rejected his pictorial style of the 1920s in favor of a "straight" approach. This image reflects the group's preference for formal patterns, such as the foreground fence, and a belief in the transcendental power of the object. The church sits high on the horizon, however, its power comes not from its ecclesiastical mission (indeed, it is difficult to even determine its religious nature), but from its simplicity, quietude, and harmony with its rustic surroundings. Surprisingly, this nondescript church in Hornitos, a small rural community about 140 miles due east of San Francisco, inspired numerous modernist photographers in search of meaningful imagery. Edward Weston took the earliest known version in 1940, while conducting a photography class with Ansel Adams near Lake Tenaya. His close-up of the church's weathered door (of which the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art has numerous examples, Eskenazi Museum of Art 64.53.85-.86, 68.117.8 and 300.X.53.8) may have inspired Adams to revisit the subject. Minor White also took a rear view of the same structure for "Three Canons" (1948).
