Landscapes for the People: George Alexander Grant, First Chief Photographer of the National Park Service - Hardcover

Davis, Ren; Davis, Helen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0820348414 ISBN 13: 9780820348414

Publisher: University of Georgia Press, 2015

Synopsis

Winner of the American Library Association's 2015 INDIEFAB Gold Medal for best photography book published by an independent or academic press

George Alexander Grant is an unknown elder in the field of American landscape photography. Just as they did the work of his contemporaries Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Eliot Porter, and others, millions of people viewed Grant's photographs; unlike those contemporaries, few even knew Grant's name. Landscapes for the People shares his story through his remarkable images and a compelling biography profiling patience, perseverance, dedication, and an unsurpassed love of the natural and historic places that Americans chose to preserve.
A Pennsylvania native, Grant was introduced to the parks during the summer of 1922 and resolved to make parks work and photography his life. Seven years later, he received his dream job and spent the next quarter century visiting the four corners of the country to produce images in more than one hundred national parks, monuments, historic sites, battlefields, and other locations. He was there to visually document the dramatic expansion of the National Park Service during the New Deal, including the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps.
Grant's images are the work of a master craftsman. His practiced eye for composition and exposure and his patience to capture subjects in their finest light are comparable to those of his more widely known contemporaries. Nearly fifty years after his death, and in concert with the 2016 centennial of the National Park Service, it is fitting that George Grant's photography be introduced to a new generation of Americans.

About this title

Book Description

Rediscovering a master of photography who documented our nation's natural treasures

From the Back Cover

“The national park idea owes a tremendous debt to the photographers who captured the beauty of America’s most special places, ultimately inspiring people to push for their protection. William Henry Jackson, Carleton Watkins, and Ansel Adams are the best known, but now Ren and Helen Davis finally give George Grant the attention he so richly deserves. As the first chief photographer of the National Park Service, Grant traveled ceaselessly to capture more than thirty thousand images, documenting a crucial moment when the park system underwent tremendous growth and transformation. Millions of people have seen his work without knowing his name or his story. The centennial of the National Park Service serves as good reason to rectify that.”

—Dayton Duncan, producer of The National Parks: America’s Best Idea

For more than two decades, George A. Grant, chief National Park Service photographer, traveled throughout this land producing superb images of America’s most iconic scenery and historic sites, including those of the ancient past. Although little known to the public, Grant belongs in the pantheon of this country’s great landscape photographers, such as William Henry Jackson and Ansel Adams. This is Grant’s first full biography, with a gallery of his photographs—for enjoyment by your fireside or in the classroom.

–Richard West Sellars, author of Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History

A Friends Fund Publication

The University of Georgia Press

Athens, Georgia 30602

www.ugapress.org

ISBN 978-0-8203-4841-4

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0820348414
• ISBN 13: 9780820348414
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 280