Fragile Waters: Photographs by Ansel Adams, Ernest Brooks II, and Dorothy Kerper Monnelly
With recent rains and flooding following years of drought, water is very much on the minds of Californians. From March 17 to August 6, 2017, San Jose Museum of Art will present an exhibition devoted to celebrating this precious, essential resource and encourage dialogue about water. Fragile Waters: Photographs by Ansel Adams, Ernest Brooks II, and Dorothy Kerper Monnelly features 120 black-and-white photographs by three artists who have expressed their lifelong commitment to protecting the sanctity of the environment through the universal language of photography. Fragile Waters is one of three exhibitions at SJMA this spring to examine the environmental, humanitarian, and social aspects of water.
Fragile Waters features 40 works by Ansel Adams and includes rarely seen historic images from his family’s private collection. Among the works featured in Fragile Waters are Adams’s images Tetons and Snake River, the Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, 1942; Point Sur, Storm, Big Sur, California, 1946; and Old Faithful Geyser, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, 1942.
Ernest Brooks II is a renowned underwater photographer and climate-change activist whose work has been exhibited at museums such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
Dorothy Kerper Monnelly has devoted her long career to landscape photography and conservation advocacy. She lives at a pond near the great marsh by Crane Beach in Ipswich, Massachusetts, and has received particular acclaim for her projects on threatened coastal marshes and ecosystems in New England.
