45. At the edge of a clearcut, Warrenton, Clatsop County, Oregon. Trees taken near the Coast Highway, as here, are often not replanted because the acreage is too valuable for other kinds of development. From Turning Back, A Photographic Journal of Re-exploration

Artist Robert Adams (American, born 1937)

Date1999–2003

Period20th-21st century

MediumGelatin silver print on paper

DimensionsMat Size: 20 x 25 inches

Credit LinePurchase with funds provided by Kathy and Richard S. Fuld, Jr.

Object number2006.026.045

Curatorial DepartmentModern & Contemporary Art

_Place of OriginUnited States

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43. At the edge of a clearcut, Warrenton, Clatsop County, Oregon. Trees taken near the Coast Highway, as here, are often not replanted because the acreage is too valuable for other kinds of development. From Turning Back, A Photographic Journal of Re-exploration

Robert Adams

1999–2003

Object number: 2006.026.043

44. At the edge of a clearcut, Warrenton, Clatsop County, Oregon. Trees taken near the Coast Highway, as here, are often not replanted because the acreage is too valuable for other kinds of development. From Turning Back, A Photographic Journal of Re-exploration

Robert Adams

1999–2003

Object number: 2006.026.044

46. At the edge of a clearcut, Warrenton, Clatsop County, Oregon. Trees taken near the Coast Highway, as here, are often not replanted because the acreage is too valuable for other kinds of development. From Turning Back, A Photographic Journal of Re-exploration

Robert Adams

1999–2003

Object number: 2006.026.046

85. A clearcut as seen from within the edge of a “beauty screen,” Clatsop County, Oregon. Timber companies now leave thin strips of woodland along public roads to mask clearcuts. When these deceptions cannot obscure the facts, corporations sometimes employ landscape architects to design clearcuts so that they will mimic the appearance of naturally open areas like meadows and rock slides. To further disguise their work, the forest products industry generates voluminous propaganda. Not many wars, even, have been justified by so much lying. From Turning Back, A Photographic Journal of Re-exploration

Robert Adams

1999–2003

Object number: 2006.026.085

86. A clearcut as seen from within the edge of a “beauty screen,” Clatsop County, Oregon. Timber companies now leave thin strips of woodland along public roads to mask clearcuts. When these deceptions cannot obscure the facts, corporations sometimes employ landscape architects to design clearcuts so that they will mimic the appearance of naturally open areas like meadows and rock slides. To further disguise their work, the forest products industry generates voluminous propaganda. Not many wars, even, have been justified by so much lying. From Turning Back, A Photographic Journal of Re-exploration

Robert Adams

1999–2003

Object number: 2006.026.086

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59. Clatsop County, Oregon. To be denied the original forest that stood here is to be orphaned, as children whose parents died in a war. In this situation we can never take comfort from the whole shape of the natural lives that bore us. John Szarkowski has written about how Eugene Atget’s photographs of old trees in France “describe the particular ways that trees articulate their forms, effloresce, bear fruit, grip the earth, claim space and light, and fail.” That testimony of completeness is destroyed by clearcutting, and with it an encouragement to wisdom and peace. From Turning Back, A Photographic Journal of Re-exploration

Robert Adams

1999–2003

Object number: 2006.026.059

60. Clatsop County, Oregon. To be denied the original forest that stood here is to be orphaned, as children whose parents died in a war. In this situation we can never take comfort from the whole shape of the natural lives that bore us. John Szarkowski has written about how Eugene Atget’s photographs of old trees in France “describe the particular ways that trees articulate their forms, effloresce, bear fruit, grip the earth, claim space and light, and fail.” That testimony of completeness is destroyed by clearcutting, and with it an encouragement to wisdom and peace. From Turning Back, A Photographic Journal of Re-exploration

Robert Adams

1999–2003

Object number: 2006.026.060

119. On Humbug Mountain, Clatsop County, Oregon. after an age of leaves and feathers someone dead thought of this mountain as money and cut the trees that were here in the wind in the rain at night it is hard to say it W. S. Merwin From Turning Back, A Photographic Journal of Re-exploration

Robert Adams

1999–2003

Object number: 2006.026.119

118. On Humbug Mountain, Clatsop County, Oregon. after an age of leaves and feathers someone dead thought of this mountain as money and cut the trees that were here in the wind in the rain at night it is hard to say it W. S. Merwin From Turning Back, A Photographic Journal of Re-exploration

Robert Adams

1999–2003

Object number: 2006.026.118

113. On Humbug Mountain, Clatsop County, Oregon. after an age of leaves and feathers someone dead thought of this mountain as money and cut the trees that were here in the wind in the rain at night it is hard to say it W. S. Merwin From Turning Back, A Photographic Journal of Re-exploration

Robert Adams

1999–2003

Object number: 2006.026.113

114. On Humbug Mountain, Clatsop County, Oregon. after an age of leaves and feathers someone dead thought of this mountain as money and cut the trees that were here in the wind in the rain at night it is hard to say it W. S. Merwin From Turning Back, A Photographic Journal of Re-exploration

Robert Adams

1999–2003

Object number: 2006.026.114

115. On Humbug Mountain, Clatsop County, Oregon. after an age of leaves and feathers someone dead thought of this mountain as money and cut the trees that were here in the wind in the rain at night it is hard to say it W. S. Merwin From Turning Back, A Photographic Journal of Re-exploration

Robert Adams

1999–2003

Object number: 2006.026.115