The Mural Project

During the years 1941-1942, Ansel Adams was employed by the U.S. Department of the Interior to take a series of photographs in the Western national parks. These photo-graphs were part of the Mural Project, a series of decorative murals created for the Department's new museum in Washington, D.c. at the request of Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes. Ickes learned of Ansel Adams' work and decided that photographic murals would be an appropriate addition to the conventional, painted murals already commissioned for the Project. The Mural Project offered Ansel Adams a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel at government expense and photograph the national parks. By November 1942 he had completed a series of 225 signed exhibition prints; however, World War II intervened and the Mural Project was put on hold. It was never resumed after the war, and Adams' photographs were filed away, all but forgotten. This volume marks the first time the Mural Project photographs have been presented to the general public. These are monumental photographs, an impressive addition to Adams' extensive body of work on the national parks. 85 black and white images are reproduced here, using the advanced printing techniques Adams developed in the maturity of his career. The photographs are accompanied by excerpts from the wilderness writings and speeches of Theodore Roosevelt, an early champion of the national park system. A preface by the present director of the National Park Service, William Penn Mott, and an introduction by Peter Wright and john Armor, the compilers of this volume, outline the history of the Mural Project and the rediscovery of these timeless photographs. The publication of The Mural Project fulfills the promise these photographs have held for almost 50 years, and is a major addition to the legacy of one of America's greatest photographers, Ansel Adams.