With circa 270 archival collections, the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson is the most prestigious university institution for the study of Photography. Scala Archives is proud to represent this collection and to handle the copyrights of some of its Masters.
The CCP opened in 1975 thanks to the fruitful collaboration between the Dean of the University of Arizona John Schaefer and Ansel Adams, and at first it focused on the management of the archives of then important and living photographers such as Ansel Adams, Wynn Bullock, Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind, and Frederick Sommer. Over time other notable American photographers of the 20th century such as W. Eugene Smith, Lola Álvarez Bravo, Edward Weston, and Garry Winogrand were added.
Today the collection consists of about 2,200 photographers and 110,000 works, including other archival material (correspondence, writings, audiovisual materials, memorabilia, books, newspapers, auction catalogs). The purpose of the CCP is the study and dissemination of photographic culture through exhibitions, publications and workshops.
SCALA was honored to be entrusted with the licensing of certain CCP collections worldwide and keeps this purpose well in mind making sure members of its team proactively present and promote the collection to its worldwide clients and at worldwide fairs, conferences or events.
Thanks to the agreement with the CCP Scala can handle the copyright of the following masters of photography: Lola Alvarez Bravo, Dean Brown, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Adolf Fassbender, John Gutmann, Otto Hagel, Hansel Mieth, Wright Morris, Dorothy Norman, Marion Palfi, Mickey Pallas, Al Richter, Laura Volkerding, Edward Weston, Max Yavno.
An internationally renowned American photographer, Ansel Adams is known for his powerful black and white images of nature and landscapes. His studies were focused on how tonal range is recorded and developed during exposure, negative development, and printing; the resulting clarity and depth of such images characterized his photography. Adams is the author of the famous series of books on photographic techniques: The Camera, The Negative and The Print.
Together with Fred Archer, he developed the Zone System method which, thanks to a deep understanding of how tonal range is recorded and developed, enabled them to obtain a particular printed result characterized by great clarity and depth in the same black and white image.
Adams founded the photography Group f/64, along with Edward Weston, Willard Van Dyke, and Imogen Cunningham. And In 1952, he was also one of the founders of “Aperture” magazine.
The passion for photography related to the theme of Nature and National Parks developed early in Ansel Adams. The first camera – a Kodak Brownie – was given to him by his father at the age of 14, in 1916, during a family vacation at Yosemite National Park. He later became an official photographer for the Sierra Club (1928), and subsequently a member of its Board of Directors.
The Sierra Club became vital to his early success as a photographer. He was hired by the U.S. Department of the Interior to carry out reports on National Parks; thanks to his photographs we have fundamental testimony of the great American Parks before they become major tourist destinations. For his works with the national parks and his ocntinued advocacy for environmental conservancy he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980.
Several of his iconic shots are also on display at the MoMA in New York. As a matter of fact Adams was a key advisor in establishing the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, as well as the department’s first show which helped legitimize the medium within the art world.
Look here for a selection of images already available online and contact us for more information.
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Cover image: Jerome Bruenn, San Francisco, 1945 © Scala, Firenze/Hansel Mieth / Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona Foundation – CC00158 –