Cathedral Peak and Lake

More About the Image:

Following Ansel’s trip with Georgia O’Keeffe throughout the southwest in 1937, he reciprocated by inviting her, David McAlpin and other members of the Rockefeller family to join him in the backcountry of Yosemite during late summer 1938.  On the second night, the group made camp near the Cathedral Lakes.  It is wildly believed that on the following evening, with afternoon thunderheads gathering, Ansel climbed an escarpment of granite above the upper lake.  Laid out before him were the deep blue basin and soaring peak, classic archetypes of the remote High Sierra, and he subsequently made this image.  It was initially included in a small portfolio intended as a gift for each member of the group, indicating the negative was made no later than 1938.  Following both the 1937 and 1938 trips with Adams, David McAlpin expressed that he had ‘been badly bitten by the photography bug.’  This resulted in McAlpin’s donation to both The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art with the stipulation that the money be used solely on the purchase of photographs.  In 1940, McAlpin would also be influential in forming the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art.  The image was included in Ansel’s Portfolio 4, ‘What Majestic Word,’ and would eventually become part of his beloved Special Editions of Yosemite series.