Ansel Adams center closes - Front Page - Brief Article

Despite recently renewed interest in the work of Ansel Adams, largely due to a popular retrospecrive currently on view at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art [to Jan. 13, before an international tour], the Friends of Photography and its Ansel Adams Center for Photography, ceased operations at the end of October. Friends of Photography was founded by Adams and others in 1967 in Carmel, Calif. The organization moved to San Francisco in 1989, five years after Adams's death, and opened the center, which held exhibitions of works by various photographers, ran a bookstore and education programs, and administered several photography prizes. During the dot-com boom in the city in the late '90s, the center's rent quadrupled and the board decided to relocate to a building near SFMOMA, at a cost of about $1.5 million. Construction delays kept the center closed for 13 months, during which time it payed rent on both its new and old spaces. It finally reopened in January 2001.

Acting director Richard C. Edwards said that the organization had been carrying a long-term debt of $1.2 million, with $350,000 due immediately, and it could no longer cover its monthly operating expenses. The cost of closing the center was estimated to be $100,000. The board voted unanimously not to file for bankruptcy, and intends to pay all its creditors, largely by selling off the collection of 140 photographs that Adams made specifically for the Friends in the '70s. The works, which are mostly 16-by-20-inch prints, include some rare images and are thought to be worth $1.5 to $2 million. Edwards hopes that the collection will be sold intact and eventually donated to a museum; the board would like to see it end up at the Oakland Museum, which will also assume the center's education programs. The 3,000-volume library will be transferred to the San Francisco Art Institute, whose photography department was founded by Adams. The Friends' archives have been donated to the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson, which also houses Adams's personal archives. The bookstore, considered one of the best for photography, will remain open in the same location under new independent ownership. The Cartoon Museum took over the building's lease on Nov. 1.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group