The Modern Art Notes Podcast

This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features a conversation with Robert Adams, his first interview in five years.

Among the topics Adams and I discuss is his how much he loves walking and how important he thinks it is for a photographer to be a walker or a hiker. During our conversation Adams talked about how that love of hiking came from experiences he shared with his father.

Adams may be the greatest living American photographer. In the 1960s and 1970s he brought a new sensibility to photographing the most classic subject in American art, the land. By emphasizing man’s impact on Colorado and its suburbs in series such as “The New West” and “What We Bought,” Adams helped pioneer art that addressed our impact on the landscape and on the Earth. A major retrospective of his 46-year career is on view at the Yale University Art Gallery. Titled “The Place We Live,” it’s on view through October 28.

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Image: Robert Adams, Harney County, Oregon (detail), from “Poplars,” 1999. Collection of the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn.