Concrete and ice, Missouri River, Clay County, South Dakota
1977
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image: 18 × 22.2 cm (7 1/16 × 8 3/4 in.) sheet: 27.7 × 35.4 cm (10 7/8 × 13 15/16 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund and Gift of Robert and Kerstin Adams
Accession Number
2012.70.51
Art Historical Context
In Robert Adams' *Concrete and Ice, Missouri River, Clay County, South Dakota* (1977), a stark gelatin silver print captures the uneasy marriage of human engineering and raw nature along the Missouri River. The image juxtaposes jagged ice floes against unyielding concrete structures, evoking the subtle drama of America's changing Western landscapes. Adams, a pioneering figure in the New Topographics movement, documented the quiet encroachment of urbanization on pristine environments during the post-World War II era, when rapid development reshaped rural America. This 18 × 22.2 cm photograph e...
About the Artist
Robert Adams · 1900–1900
Robert Adams, born Robert Hickman Adams on May 8, 1937, in Orange, New Jersey, grew up amid frequent relocations that shaped his deep affinity for the American landscape—from New Jersey to Madison, Wisconsin, and finally to Wheat Ridge, Colorado, in 1952.) Contracting polio at age 12, he recovered but retained a sensitivity to the environment that fueled his later work. After earning a B.A. in Eng...