Robert Adams: The Plains Remembered Again

In 2020, during the isolation of the pandemic, Robert Adams (born 1937) noticed the subtle markings on a small plank of wood, seeing the form of a landscape in its grain. Long celebrated as a photographer, Adams began working with wooden scraps and block printing ink, creating pieces that allude to the quiet forms of the grass-covered landscape he remembered from time spent on the Colorado prairie. Created using tools he inherited from his father and grandfather and often highlighting the natural grain of the wood, the painted woodblocks are modest in size and painted in springlike hues. Following the 2022 publication of The Plains, From Memory, this book brings together 22 new works, often featuring a bright horizon formed by blue sky and green grass, along with simple painted forms. There are depictions of sunflowers and stands of trees, a road stretching into the distance, towering clouds, and the sun itself, in a bright yellow frame.