Robert Hickman Adams
author · photographer
Robert Hickman Adams (born May 8, 1937) is an American photographer known for his focus on the changing landscapes of the American West. His work gained prominence in the mid-1970s with the publication of 'The New West' (1974) and his participation in the seminal 'New Topographics' exhibition in 1975. Adams' photography often explores the intersection of natural beauty and human-altered landscapes, characterized by a sense of silence and ecological fragility. He received several prestigious awards, including two Guggenheim Fellowships, a MacArthur Fellowship, the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, and the Hasselblad Award. He has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame in 2020. His work is held in numerous major public collections globally.[1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
- American West landscape
- human-altered landscape
- ecological fragility
- silence
- New Topographics
Books
Works by Robert Hickman Adams
- 1974 The New West: Landscapes along the Colorado Front Range Adams is both author and photographer of this work.
- 1970 White Churches of the Plains
- 1974 The Architecture and Art of Early Hispanic Colorado
- 1977 Denver: A Photographic Survey of the Metropolitan Area
- 1978 Prairie
- 1980 From the Missouri West
- 1981 Beauty in Photography: Essays in Defense of Traditional Values
- 1982 Summer Nights, Walking
- 1984 Our Lives and Our Children: Photographs Taken Near the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant
- 1985 Summer Nights
- 1986 Los Angeles Spring
- 1988 Perfect Times, Perfect Places
- 1989 To Make It Home: Photographs of the American West
- 1995 Cottonwoods
- 1994 Listening to the River: Seasons in the American West
- 1994 Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews by Robert Adams
- 1995 West from the Columbia: Views at the River Mouth
- 1996 Beauty in Photography
- 1999 Eden
- 1999 I Hear the Leaves and Love the Light
- 1999 Notes for Friends: Along Colorado Roads
- 2000 California: Views by Robert Adams of the Los Angeles Basin 1978–1983
- 2001 Boddhisattva: A Gandharan Face
- 2002 Alders
- 2002 Sunlight, Solitude, Democracy, Home
- 2003 Commercial Residential
- 2003 No Small Journeys: Across Shopping Center Parking Lots, Down City Streets, 1979–1982
- 2005 Pine Valley
- 2005 A Portrait in Landscapes
- 2005 Turning Back: A Photographic Journal of Re-exploration
- 2006 Along Some Rivers: Photographs and Conversation
- 2006 Interiors 1973–1974
- 2006 Still Lives at Manzanita
- 2007 Questions for an Overcast Day
- 2007 Time Passes
- 2008 Close at Hand
- 2010 Tree Line: Hasselblad Award 2009
- 2010 Gone? Colorado in the 1980s
- 2010 What Can We Believe Where? Photographs of the American West
- 2010 The Place We Live, a Retrospective Selection of Photographs, 1964–2009
- 2011 Sea Stories
- 2011 This Day: Photographs from Twenty-Five Years, The Northwest Coast
- 2012 Light Balances & ON Any Given Day in Spring
- 2012 Prairie
- 2012 Skogen
- 2013 The Question of Hope: Photographs in Western Oregon Published on the occasion of the exhibition "The Question of Hope: Robert Adams in Western Oregon," organized by the Portland Art Museum, September 7, 2013 – January 5, 2014.
- 2017 Art Can Help
- 2021 American Silence: The Photographs of Robert Adams Authored by Sarah Greenough. With an afterword by Terry Tempest Williams.
Exhibitions
- 1975 New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape
- 1989 Mid-career retrospective
- 2005 Turning Back
- 2005 Turning Back
- 2006 Turning Back
- 2005 Turning Back
- 2011 Landscape with Path: Nebraska State Highway 2
- 2010 The Place We Live, a Retrospective Selection of Photographs
- 2011 The Place We Live, a Retrospective Selection of Photographs
- 2012 The Place We Live, a Retrospective Selection of Photographs
- 2012 The Place We Live, a Retrospective Selection of Photographs
- 2013 The Place We Live, a Retrospective Selection of Photographs
- 2013 The Place We Live, a Retrospective Selection of Photographs
- 2014 The Place We Live, a Retrospective Selection of Photographs
- 2014 The Place We Live, a Retrospective Selection of Photographs
- 2012 On Any Given Day in Spring and Light Balances
- 2015 Green/Gray: Photographs in the Los Angeles Basin
- 2018 A Right to Stand
- 2022 American Silence: The Photographs of Robert Adams
Awards
- 1973 Guggenheim Fellowship
- 1973 Photographer's Fellowship
- 1978 Photographer's Fellowship
- 1980 Guggenheim Fellowship
- 1982 Peer Award
- 1987 Charles Pratt Memorial Award
- 1994 MacArthur Fellowship
- 1995 Spectrum International Prize for Photography
- 2006 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize
- 2009 Hasselblad Award
- 2014 Election to American Academy of Arts and Letters
- 2020 Induction into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum
References
- Sean O'Hagan. Robert Adams: a photographer with a profound sense of place. The Guardian. 2012 link
- Robert Adams. Museum of Contemporary Photography link
- Robert Adams. The Place We Live. Yale University Art Gallery link
- Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2006. 2006 link
- Robert Adams. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art link
- Niklas Magnusson. Robert Adams, U.S. Photographer, Wins $61,000 Hasselblad Award. Bloomberg News. 2009 link
- Robert Adams. International Photography Hall of Fame. 2020 link