Robert Adams is one of the artists included in the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art Oral History Program, which documents the history of the visual arts in the United States through interviews. In 2010, Adams spoke with Toby Jurovics, curator of photography at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, at Adams’s home in Oregon. Among many topics, Adams describes growing up in Colorado and elsewhere; his transition from English professor to full time photographer; the role of spirituality and morality in art; and the environmental and societal concerns that have informed much of his work.
Talking about his enduring reverence and hope for the natural word, Adams notes that seen together, his many books are “an autobiography of a person…trying to find their proper silence.”
Listen to the interview here.