Interior of Tumacocori Mission, Arizona

Best known for his sharply focused and carefully composed vistas of the western United States, Ansel Adams was highly influential during the course of the 20th century in the development of a modernist photographic aesthetic and an exacting technical approach to making photographs. Taken at the Tumacacori National Historical Park in Arizona, Adam’s photograph of the interior of the Mission San José de Tumacácori is unusual within the artist’s oeuvre. The limited depth of the interior space compresses the picture plane with the painted motifs on the mission’s wall and areas of deep shadow to create a flattening effect verging on abstraction.