Ansel Adams in Our Time: Art Lecture at the JCCSF

This docent talk offers you a front row seat to experience this exhibition featuring some of Adam’s most-loved photographs, including images of Yosemite, San Francisco, and the American Southwest. Adams is not only known for his exquisite photographs but just as importantly for his environmental advocacy. Ansel Adams in Our Time spans the scope of the artist’s nearly seven-decade career and his efforts to establish both environmental stewardship as a pillar of civic life and the photographic medium as a widely accepted art form. Beloved for his lush gelatin silver photographs of the national parks, Ansel Adams is a giant of 20th-century photography whose images have become icons of the American wilderness. A longtime member of the Sierra Club, Adams would go on to perfect the rich detail and tonal range of his landscapes in service of what he called the “spiritual-emotional” aspects of parks and wilderness, conveying their restorative power. Adams’s legacy continues to inspire and provoke, influencing how we envision the landscape and serving as an urgent call to preserve our environment. 

Mike Madrid has been a docent at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco since 2019. He was an advertising and marketing executive for more than twenty years, specializing in global fashion brands. Mike is the author of three books including The Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy, and the History of Comic Book Heroines, which NPR named as one of their “Five Best Books to Share with A Friend.” He has written articles for several publications including The Huffington Post, and has spoken at colleges, libraries, and conferences across the country. A San Francisco native, Mike is an avid traveler who loves to visit museums both large and small around the world. 

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) are comprised of two iconic sites in San Francisco’s beautiful parks- the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and Legion of Honor Museum in Lincoln Park. As the largest public arts institution in the western United States, the Museums house a world-class collection of 151,000 artworks that span more than 5,000 years. The JCCSF and FAMSF have collaborated for over a decade, and we are grateful that FAMSF graciously shares the beauty and history of their collections with the community through inspiring educational docent talks.