TORONTO, CANADA.- Outstanding photography featured at the Art Gallery of Ontario celebrates the work of two renowned masters of the medium in black and white, Ansel Adams (1902–1984) and Alfred Eisenstaedt (1898–1995). Until February 4, 2007, these two exhibitions present a new look at the extraordinary careers of Adams and Eisenstaedt and highlight some of their most iconic images.

The Ansel Adams exhibition, organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, includes 125 photographs spanning this American master’s fifty-year career. Known for his black and white photography of the American West, Adams captured images of spectacular mountain peaks and escarpments – as well as white billowing clouds and distant horizons – that express his deep feelings for the natural grandeur of the landscape.

Adams is among a select group of photographers in history whose works enjoy wide recognition. He was also an influential teacher, curator, author and environmental activist. Ansel Adams offers many surprises, such as rare early photographs, architectural and urban views, portraits of friends and modernist subjects of the 1930s. A highlight is a very rare group of images of Pueblo Indians taken in New
Mexico in 1929, and a small group of photographs made in 1937 on a road trip with

Georgia O'Keeffe, at which time Adams captured the painter and their guide, Orville Cox, in casual conversation. Also featured are an elegant Japanese-style folding screen and fascinating examples of Adams’s reinterpretation of earlier negatives which demonstrate changes in his technique over time.

“Many have come to know Adams’s work through widely published books and reproductions, but there has been relatively few opportunities in this country to experience the originals,” says Maia-Mari Sutnik, curator of Photography at the AGO. “To do so is to discover timeless images that are eloquently crafted, and artistic surprises befitting the legend.”

The photographs have been selected from The Lane Collection, which evolved over a decade. In close collaboration with Adams, American collectors William H. and Saundra B. Lane massed a comprehensive collection of consummate quality and richness.

On view at the same time as the Ansel Adams exhibition, the AGO displays an exhibition of 72 photographs by Alfred Eisenstaedt. These works bring to light the creative forces of two diverse photographic visions.

Eisenstaedt’s candid style of photography was developed in Germany in the late 1920s and ‘30s. Many of his photographs chronicled the 1930s during pre-WWII Europe and were published in popular picture magazines of the time, where they attracted attention because they captured the lives of ordinary people through their unique focus on cultural activities and vivid everyday moments. Eisenstaedt’s perceptive eye and timing captured subjects with a sense of spontaneity. His realistic style contributed to the foundation of modern photojournalism.

The AGO is proud to recognize Aeroplan as the Lead Sponsor of Alfred Eisenstaedt and Brenda Coleman Milrad and Aaron Milrad for their generous support of this remarkable exhibition.

"Our role in this exhibition of Eisenstaedt's work is an important milestone for Aeroplan's support of the photographic arts in Canada," said Aeroplan's President & CEO Rupert Duchesne. "Eisenstaedt lived through and captured on film defining moments in the 20th century. He gave them human scale for the public – creating the genre of photojournalism, which is so central to our world view today.”

The AGO owns more than 800 photographs by Eisenstaedt. This holding is a component of the Klinsky Agency collection, an extraordinary anonymous gift to the AGO which includes more than 18,000 works of photography.