“From the Missouri West” was first published by Aperture in 1980, and has been recently republished in a new edition by Steidl. This book was one of the first photography books I purchased. (I recall sending $20 directly to Aperture to purchase a hardcover copy, and receiving a $15 softcover instead.) I read and re-read this book many times.
Robert Adams South from Rocky Flats, Jefferson County, CO
Robert Adams first gained attention with his 1974 book “The New West”, first published by the University of Colorado Associated Press. It includes an essay by John Szarkowski that begins “As Americans we are scarred by dreams of innocence.” This volume has been republished three times since then, in 2001, 2008, and 2016, each time retaining the original format, selection and sequencing of the photographs. Why change perfection?
As published in 1980 “From the Missouri West” reads as an extension of the ideas of “The New West” but with the space of the west as the subject rather than the urban landscape near Denver. While the public was wildly embracing the monumental wilderness landscapes of Ansel Adams, Robert Adams instead turned his lens towards the spaces found in Timothy O’Sullivan photographs. With the single exception of a night shot lit by headlights in the parking lot of the Garden of the Gods, Robert Adams ignored the grand landscapes of the west in favor of spaces that could kindly be described as ordinary, though perhaps “depleted” would be a more accurate term.
Robert Adams Clear Creek and South Table Mountain, Jefferson County, 1976
The 1980 printing of “From the Missouri West” included 47 photographs, mostly presented as facing spreads, filling most of the page. The printing was done by Meridian Gravure with duotone separations done by Richard Benson—the best in the industry—but, by current standards, the printing feels a bit off—with skies and highlights blown out, and shadows a bit too deep. (Worth noting—the earliest book I have in my collection done with laser scans is “The portfolios of Ansel Adams”, printed with new scans in 1981—digital printing technology has made printing much more predictable.)
In the Robert Adams retrospective “The Place We Live” (first published by Yale in 2010, but kept in print by Stiedl in 2014), the section titled “From the Missouri West (1975-1983)” has a total of 18 photographs—but of these, only 8 were included in the 1980 book. The project obviously did not end with the publication of the book in 1980.
Robert Adams Fontana, California, 1983
The new edition of “From the Missouri West” currently in print, published by Steidl in 2018 retains the title and about half the pictures from the 1980 version, but expands the project in almost every way. First, the physical book is bigger—it is 13.8 x 15.9 inches, and weighs 5.8 pounds. Each image is printed at 9.5×12 inches—approximately the size of a silver print produced on 11×14 inch paper. The printing is quadtone, with at least one ink a warm brown, resulting in a color similar to the “old portriga” look. (While any honest printer will tell you that it is impossible to completely reproduce the tonal scale of a silver print in ink, it is certainly possible to make beautiful reproductions—and these are.)
As for image selection—the new version contains 62 images, with 27 from the 1980 version, and 35 new images. The new selection contains some images that would fit into “Prairie” or “Denver” or “What We Bought: The New World” or “Los Angeles Spring”. It feels like this book ties together much of Adams work in the Western Landscape, at least the human parts.
Robert Adams San Timoteo Canyon, Redlands, CA 1983
What is most striking about the new version is simply the size of the pictures. Robert Adams photographs are typically small—my recollection of viewing “The New West” at the Philadelphia museum was that his prints were about 5×5 inches—but gemlike, perfect to hold in your hand. The larger pictures seem to both require and reward more attention. As I age and my eyesight weakens, I find, when looking at photographs in a museum or gallery, I take my glasses off and look at images from a few inches away—there are often hidden pleasures in photographs when viewed this way. I find myself looking at the photographs in this edition of “From the Missouri West” in the same way.
In the past, Robert Adams has been savaged by critics—when his “The New West” was first reviewed, a critic called the work “cold and unfeeling.” He once spoke of going into the gallery the morning that review came out in the paper, and watching a young couple come into the gallery, go from picture to picture, repeating, “cold and unfeeling—yeah”. When they came to the last picture, the man turned to the woman, shrugged, and said, “Well, I don’t know. It looks like Colorado to me.” Which he thought proves that no matter how vicious the critics might be, the pictures can speak for themselves, if they are strong enough. He then said that what hurts the most about criticism like that is that he can’t understand how people can’t see the love in the pictures.
What “From the Missouri West” has always been is a poem by a disappointed, but still faithful, lover of this landscape. Like Frost, he had a lover’s quarrel with the world–or at least the western landscape.
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For me, almost as important as the pictures in the 1980 version was the short essay by Robert Adams included as an afterword. This essay has been shortened and modified in the 2018 edition. All I can say is that I have spent years mulling over some of the lines that have disappeared from the new version. So, here it is.
Afterward (1980)
“About the pictures
Exploration of the West began in the Nineteenth Century at the Missouri River. On its banks pioneers understood themselves to be at the edge of a sublime landscape, one that they believed would be redemptive. My own ancestors, as it happens, settled along the river, and my grandfather made enthusiastic trips into the Dakota prairies to make panoramic photographs. For these reasons, and because I had lost my way in the suburbs, I decided to try to rediscover some of the land forms that had impressed our forebears. Was there remaining in the geography a strength that might help sustain us as it had them? I set one ground rule—to include in the photographs evidence of man; it was a precaution in favor of truth that was easy to follow since our violence against the earth has extended to even anonymous arroyos and undifferentiated stands of scrub brush.
As a “survey”, this one is not literally a cross section of the West, nor is it a catalogue of what is unusual there. The scenes were chosen, first, because they were near where I had lived or often traveled—familiar places. I cannot justify this beyond saying that I agree with a Seneca Indian chant: “I know all about these different hills is all I know; I know all about these different rivers is all I know.”
What, if such is the case, do the pictures mean? Any answer must be as suspect as it is, unavoidably personal. The last view in the book, for instance, was made in wonderful circumstances. Clouds had obscured the mountains east of Arch Cape on the Oregon coast all day, but in late afternoon they opened and I drove far up a logging road to a point where I was able, before night fell, to use the one film holder I had remaining. I value the picture because it reminds me of a time when I was allowed to be still—as we all are—and to see again, despite our follies, that the landscape retains its own stillness.
R.A.
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