The Big Picture: The Materiality of Size in Ansel Adams’s Large-Scale Works

The prominence of the large-format photograph in contemporary art since the 1970s is often attributed to the desire to explore new pictorial and spatial avenues by moving beyond the documentary approaches that had dominated since the 1930s. While not an inaccurate characterisation, the focus upon the artistic impulses associated with large-scale photography comes at the expense of the material issues that enabled it. This article addresses the gap by examining two largely overlooked forms produced by Ansel Adams between 1930 and 1960 – the photomural and the folding photo-screen – in order to demonstrate the high level of direct engagement that existed between photographer and materiality, which resulted in large-scale works that addressed many of the same issues dealt with in contemporary large-format photography, but that also stood in stark contrast to the ephemeral, mass-produced, large-scale work prevalent at the time. By con- sidering historical examples, from an era when materials and processes were very different, the article demonstrates the active, physical effects of photographic enlargement, revealing print size to be not simply a changeable option but an inherently material condition, honing our understanding of why a photograph is big by demonstrating how it got that way.