Ansel Adams (1902 - 1984) was the most honored American photographer of the twentieth century. Through the exhibition and publication of his work, his writings, and his leadership in the Sierra Club, Adams was also a prescient and highly effective voice in the fight to preserve America's remaining wilderness.

Peter Galassi was a curator in the Department of Photography at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, for thirty years, including twenty as Chief Curator, from 1991 to 2011. He organized or co-organized more than forty exhibitions and countless collection displays at MoMA, many of which were accompanied by major publications. He was twice a fellow in the Department of European Paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and has won the Eric Mitchell Prize and the International Center of Photography award for excellence in writing. In 2012 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for a study of photography's vernacular and modernist traditions.