Robert Adams: The Plains, from Memory

Description

In the spring of 2020, as he watched his country tested, Robert Adams discovered in his garage a small plank of wood that contained a landscape. This led to the creation, during a difficult time, of an unexpected series of works that drew upon memories of a stillness and a grandeur he had forgotten about. Over the next few months, using scrap wood from an old bookcase, hand tools that once belonged to his father and grandfather, and block printing ink, Adams affirmed his own basis for hope in the 21 scenes that appear in this book. I came out on this plain... First I thought it was like the sea ... then I thought it was like singing... - Agnes Martin

Robert Adams was born in 1937 in Orange, New Jersey. After earning a PhD in English literature and teaching the subject for several years at Colorado College, he became a photographer in the mid-1960s. Adams has published more than 40 books of photographs, with the changing landscape of the American West as his primary subject; his books with Steidl include Gone? (2009), The Place We Live (2013) and From the Missouri West (2018). Adams lives and works with his wife in northwest Oregon. Joshua Chuang is a curator, writer and editor who currently serves as Associate Director of Art, Prints and Photographs and Senior Curator of Photography at The New York Public Library.

[The photographs] are marvels of simplicity, evocation, and, yes, quietude.--Mark Feeney "Boston Globe"