ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – A woman in Missouri may have stumbled across a huge collection of Ansel Adams photographs—a photographer famous for his pictures of American southwestern landscapes. The collection would have been taken on one of his trips through the southwest in the 1930s and 1940s. Now, the owner of this collection is trying to spread awareness about the newly unearthed photographs.
“I could see that the detail in these photos was unlike anything I’d ever seen in any photo,” explained Kelly Robinson, owner of the collection.
“It is a nice representation of an historical view of 1930s and 40s Americana,” Robinson said, “It shows how a thriving America was represented with big industry. Steel companies; there’s a lot of other things represented in this collection that show what was going on in America during that time period.”
In early June, Robinson of southwestern Missouri stumbled upon a collection of photographs that piqued her interest.
“I am a person that’s a fan of Native American photos. I was brought up with Native Americans in Wichita, Kansas, and when I found that there were photos for sale that were Native Americans, I wanted the photos just because of that,” Robinson said.
However, she quickly realized the collection included much more: “Then I found it was part of an overarching larger over 200 photo collection that came directly from the corporate photography collection of the Santa Fe Railway.”
The woman Robinson purchased the collection from is the granddaughter of a person who worked at the railway’s advertising department in the 1940s. Robinson said she told her some of the photographs could be the work of Ansel Adams.
“The entire collection shows us kind of what was going on in the 1940s narrative around the wartime efforts; the Office of War Information hired photographers to go on site and take photos of different things that would show a thriving America,” Robinson stated.
“Some of the photos are part of what are Jack Delano’s photos of some of that story, then the other part are the Ansel Adams photos that tell us a narrative around the Native Americans on reservations, Native Americans that might have greeted trains and had kind of a celebratory for the Santa Fe Chief,” Robinson stated.
The collection includes pictures of Native Americans from around New Mexico in places like San Ildefonso and Taos; national parks including Carlsbad Caverns; and the railways.
Robinson said she did a lot of research about the pictures, and worked to authenticate them. “I had to track back to what Ansel Adams was doing in 1938 and ’41 timeframe and was able to find records in the archives. I found the records of his travels and all the different locations that I had first, so I found that. Then I was able to track back to the different parks and different organizations that might have been involved and then make sure, ‘Hey, are these Ansel Adams?’ ‘Yeah, those are Ansel Adams.'”
“Once I got the ‘yeses’ starting to come in, then I sent the package to the Ansel Adams Gallery, to the manager there who runs that to make sure that, you know , I’m not just misspeaking and yes, surely enough, they are his commercial work,” Robinson said. She stated the manager of that gallery is Ansel Adams’ grandson.
Robinson said the works were done for commercial clients, so they’re not signed by Ansel Adams: “That’s what makes them a little bit different. They’re not signed; they’re stamped, but they’re not signed because they were for his commercial clients and a lot of times you would never ever see his name on the materials.”
“These are originals that are part of the collection and some of the photos in the collection are found in some of the old Santa Fe Railway promotional materials, so you might see them in Indian Detours, for example, from the 1940s,” Robinson explained, “In addition, Ansel Adams’ famous photo, ‘Moonrise Hernandez,’ was taken only seven miles from some of the photos I have in the same timeframe.”
Robinson said she never expected a find like this: “I thought this is going to be another addition to my Native American Collection, so I was absolutely stunned when I found out that there was over 50 Ansel Adams photos.”
Robinson said she’s received estimates that the collection is worth somewhere in the six figures: “I have estimates coming in, people say they’re worth between a thousand and four thousand each. Because they’re commercial works, they’re not the 20,000 and 40,000 dollar price range, but they are of value.”
She hopes to keep the collection together and have it be exhibited somewhere as a whole.
“I believe an organization like a Union Station somewhere in America could purchase these and have them as an end-to-end view of what was going on with the Santa Fe railway intertwined with the government, and as produced by the photographers and the artists of the day telling that story,” Robinson said, “Ideally, it would stay together, and it would go into an exhibit.”
News 13 reached out to the Ansel Adams Gallery to confirm whether they think these photographs are authentic and is waiting to hear back.
