Ansel Adams (1902–1984) - The Tetons and the Snake River, 1942

Ansel Adams, The Tetons and the Snake River, 1942.

The Tetons and the Snake River is one of Ansel Adams’s most iconic photographs and a masterpiece of American landscape art. Taken in 1942 at Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, the image depicts the winding Snake River leading the viewer’s eye toward the monumental snowcapped peaks, framed by a dramatic sky.

The composition is a perfect example of Adams’s ability to unite technique and vision: the interplay of light and shadow, the sharpness of every detail, and the tonal richness achieved through his famed Zone System elevate the photograph into a symbol of natural and spiritual grandeur. This work was selected by NASA to travel aboard the Voyager spacecraft in 1977, as part of the Golden Record designed to represent humanity’s achievements to possible extraterrestrial civilizations. In this sense, The Tetons and the Snake River is not only an icon of landscape photography, but also one of the few images that accompany humankind in its message to the universe, twinned with Gagarin’s leap: both acts are part of the same impulse—the drive to project our existence beyond the planetary frontier.

'Copyright Ansel Adams / Corbis / Cordon Press' at the bottom. Total dimensions: 30 x 23,5 cm on semi-gloss paper. Fine condition. Printed later, 2000s.

Ansel Adams is regarded as one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century, comparable to Edward Weston, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Adams, Sebastião Salgado, Richard Misrach, and Michael Kenna, among others.

An essential piece for collectors of landscape photography and cultural heritage, condensing both Adams’s artistic vision and the timeless majesty of the North American wilderness.