Umatilla County, Oregon
1978, printed 1983
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image: 38.2 x 47.6 cm (15 1/16 x 18 3/4 in.) sheet: 40.5 x 50.5 cm (15 15/16 x 19 7/8 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Patrons' Permanent Fund
Accession Number
2001.67.2
Art Historical Context
Robert Adams's *Umatilla County, Oregon* (1978, printed 3) captures the subtle interplay between human development and the vast American West. This gelatin silver print, measuring 38.2 x 47.6 cm, depicts a characteristically stark landscape from Oregon's Umatilla County, likely showcasing agricultural fields, sparse habitation, or encroaching suburbia—hallmarks of Adams's unflinching gaze on environmental transformation. A pioneer of the New Topographics movement, Adams documented the quiet erosion of pristine wilderness by postwar expansion in the 1970s. His black-and-white gelatin silver pr...
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...