Eden, Colorado

"Eden, Colorado, is named after a railroad official and not the Biblical paradise. To the east of the interstate highway that bisects it are railroad tracks, gas tanks, and a prefabricated metal shed. To the west, a roadhouse (closed), a military salvage lot, a car-wrecking yard, and the Westland truck stop. Extending beyond along the freeway are billboards advertising whiskey, real estate, and ice. Except for casual greetings from the waitresses in the cafe, Eden is a place without human gentleness. The air is weighted by the sound of traffic. There is, however, another aspect to this spot, one that can be set forth only in riddles. Stuart Davis, when he described his goal as an artist, talked of it: “I am not looking for something newer or greater,” he said. “Everything new and great already exists—has always existed. We need to make our connection with it.”’ Robert Adams, Introduction to Eden, Roth Horowitz, 1999.

One of the most influential exhibitions of the 1970s opened at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York in 1975. The exhibition was titled New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape, was curated by a young William Jenkins, and included 168 works by 10 photographers, including Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, John Scott, Stephen Shore, and Henry Wessel, Jr.

Quite insistently, Robert Adams was the most ardent environmentalist among the group, and set the stage for a redefined approach to photography that was as concerned with impact as it was with formal concerns. The work by Adams included in New Topographics, as the show came to be known, included images of tract homes and suburban growth in and around Denver, Colorado, and the small towns to the north, such as Longmont and Berthoud.

The work presented here was all made in the tiny town of Eden, Colorado— a small cluster around an Interstate intersection, really—some 100 miles south of Denver. Adams began photographing in this unremarkable area of to the south, just off the interstate highway, in 1968 while working as an English teacher in Colorado Springs. He had taken up photography seriously just 5 years earlier and would be inspired by the humanist approach of photographers like Dorothea Lange. The scenes capture bleak yet serene details of the locale—morning coffee at the truck stop to late night refueling at the gas station. The high desert plains are dry and parched; everything bakes in the heat of the midday sun. This early, pivotal series of images by the artist led directly to his first major monograph, the critically acclaimed book The New West.

This complete set of 17 prints —the only complete set in existence, and which were used for the striking and out-of-print book published by Roth Horowitz in 1999—has been in the same hands since the late 1990s and has never come to market. Each print is titled, signed, and dated, and is numbered in sequence of the book. In gorgeous condition and sold as a set, the work represents one of the great groupings of work by an acknowledged American master.

Over the course of his illustrious career, Adams has closely interacted with and documented the changing landscape of the American West. His stark images are an exploration into the relationship between human activity and the natural world. Surprisingly, he allows for a full range of emotions to pour through his imagery, from despair and sadness to joy and serenity, as well as a profound spiritual calmness.

As a child, Adams relocated often, moving from one suburb to another, and found solace in roaming the outdoors with his father. A passionate environmentalist, Adams is both inspired by nature’s innate beauty and frustrated by the damage that has been caused as a result of an ever expanding industriousness. His lament towards these effects, however, is balanced by a hopeful sentiment in the simplicity of a quiet life, seen in the surviving light, scale, and silence of nature.