Dawn, Autumn, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee

1948, printed 1981

Ansel Adams

Artist, American, 1902 - 1984

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    gelatin silver print

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Virginia B. Adams

  • Dimensions

    overall: 37 x 49.5 cm (14 9/16 x 19 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    1986.3.55

More About this Artwork

We look out onto a sweeping, panoramic view with trees, their leaves fiery orange and red, framing a view of a distant body of water under a sun-streaked sky in this long, horizontal landscape painting. The horizon comes about halfway up the composition, and is lined with hazy mountains and clouds in the deep distance. Close examination slowly reveals minuscule birds tucked into the crimson-red, golden yellow, and deep, sage-green leaves of the trees to either side of the painting. Closest to us, vine-covered, fallen tree trunks and mossy gray boulders line the bottom edge of the canvas. Beyond a trickling waterfall and small pool near the lower left corner, and tiny within the scale of the landscape, a group of three men and their dogs sit and recline around a blanket and a picnic basket, their rifles leaning against a tree nearby. The land sweeps down to a grassy meadow crossed by a meandering stream that winds into the distance, at the center of the painting. Touches of white and gray represent a flock of grazing sheep in the meadow. A low wooden bridge spans the stream to our right, and a few cows drink from the riverbank. Smoke rises from chimneys in a town lining the riverbank and shoreline beyond, and tiny white sails and steamboats dot the waterway. Light pours onto the scene with rays like a starburst from behind a lavender-gray cloud covering the sun, low in the sky. The artist signed the painting as if he had inscribed the flat top of a rock at the lower center of the landscape with his name, the title of the painting, and date: “Autumn – on the Hudson River, J.F Cropsey, London 1860.”

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Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Virginia B. Adams, Carmel, CA; gift to NGA, 1986.

Associated Names

Bibliography

1977

  • Portfolios 1977, 35.

1985

  • Alinder, James, and Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr. Ansel Adams: Classic Images, The Museum Set. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Boston, 1985: 39.

Inscriptions

lower right on mount in graphite: Ansel Adams

Wikidata ID

Q64144916

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