PRE-WORLD WAR II LOS ANGELES THROUGH THE PHOTOGRAPHIC LENS OF ANSEL ADAMS©

When people think of the Los Angeles of the first half of the 20th Century, they generally don't associate it with world-renown photographer Ansel Adams (1902-1984).

Conversely, when people think of Ansel Adams, they generally associate him with his well-known black-and-white photographs of the Western USA, in particular of Northern California's Yosemite National Park, and also of his iconic "Moonrise" photo taken in New Mexico. 

Few people, however, know that Ansel Adams spent time in the early 1940s in Los Angeles teaching photography and training military photographers at what is known today as the Art Center College of Design.  During this time period, he photographed Los Angeles' "urban landscape", capturing for posterity the look and feel of the pre-World War II city which inspired so many dark, brooding movies in the 1940s which collectively came to be referred to as the genre of "film noir".

In 1940 Los Angeles had a population of 1.5-million people. 

In 1940 the cost of gasoline was 10-cents per gallon.

In 1940 the average new car cost $700. 

Also in 1940 the United States of America began re-arming for World War II -- and the prestigious Ansel Adams was commissioned by Fortune Magazine to photograph a series of images for an article covering the rapidly growing aviation industry in the Los Angeles area.

For the Fortune Magazine project, Adams took more than 200 black-and-white photographs showing everyday life in Los Angeles, including businesses, street scenes, aircraft factory workers at lunch, trailer parks, oil derricks in the middle of busy city streets, and a variety of other subjects. 

When the article, "City of the Angels", appeared in the March 1941 issue devoted entirely to the aircraft industry, only a few of Adams' images were included. 

Decades later, in the early 1960s, Adams himself rediscovered the photographs among papers at his home in Carmel, California and donated them to the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL).    At that time, he wrote in a letter: "The weather was bad over a rather long period and none of the pictures were very good... I would imagine that they represent about $100.00 minimum value... At any event, I do not want them back." (Excerpt from: "Ansel Adams Los Angeles" Exhibit at drkrm gallery during "Pacific Standard Time", an unprecedented collaboration in 2011-2012 of more than sixty cultural institutions across Southern California (SoCal) which had come together to tell the story of the birth of the L.A. art scene.)

The video herein below was made in conjunction with the "Ansel Adams Los Angeles" Exhibit at drkrm gallery which was a component of the "Pacific Standard Time" city-wide exhibition in 2011-2012 at multiple SoCal cultural and arts venues.

In 2019, the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL) featured a number of photos from the Ansel Adams Collection in an Exhibit at the Library entitled "On Assignment:  Ansel Adams in Los Angeles".

The Ansel Adams Collection at the LAPL provides a time capsule of life in Los Angeles as the Great Depression was coming to an end, and as ominous clouds were on the horizon foreshadowing the impending world catastrophe that would catapult the United States into World War II.

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(Photo and primary sources:  Los Angeles Public Library's Ansel Adams Collection;  Video credit: MPH Productions for the 2011-2012 "Pacific Standard Time" Exhibit at the drkrm gallery)

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