"Ansel Adams and Friends"

“Ansel Adams and Friends”
Giclee print
Image size: 8.5" x 10" - Edition: 50 signed and numbered / 15 remarqued artist proofs.

  In 1979 I met Ansel Adams through the Lighthouse Frame Shop in Monterey, California where we both had our art work framed. Don Hartman, the owner, introduced us after Ansel had expressed interest in my paintings.

  Subsequently our friendship developed and in 1981 Ansel invited me to come to his 80th birthday showing in Monterey and to bring along my photography students from the University of Nevada class I was instructing. A great trip for all, as he gave the students and myself an opening show tour and signed autographs on his new books.

  Not long after, he invited my wife and I to come to his home in Carmel. I asked him to pose for me, for a new series of paintings I was working on.  Titled, "Great Americans and the Arts", Ansel would represent the art of photography.

  He agreed and set-up his camera in his living room. We had a grand time taking the photos which I feel is conveyed in the painting. The background image is one of his personal favorites, "Moonrise Hernandez" a fleeting moment he managed to capture in the instant before it lost the light.