Ansel Adams black and white photo of Lockheed Plant in Burbank, California, with man walking toward train tracks as train approaches from the right in foreground. (Anzel Adams)
Ansel Adams photo of Lockheed Plant in Burbank, California. (Ansel Adams)

The Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art offers a groundbreaking exhibit that reveals a little‑known chapter of America’s most celebrated photographer in “Beyond the Wilderness: Ansel Adams in 1940s Los Angeles,” Jan. 15-March 28.

The museum will host a free, public, opening reception for the exhibit, 4-6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 15.

While Adams has earned universal recognition for his majestic black‑and‑white landscapes and his pioneering Zone System, the Westmont show spotlights a body of work that diverges sharply from his familiar wilderness imagery.

Many of the featured works in the display come from the collection of the Los Angeles County Public Library. Adams offered them a series of 217 negatives portraying 1940s Los Angeles in the lead-up to World War II.

He shot the images on assignment for Fortune magazine to document the lives of workers in Los Angeles’ booming aviation industry driven by aircraft company giants Douglas, Lockheed and Northrop.

The exhibit includes many of his iconic wilderness images, including three of his most famous landscapes on view in large format.

“Unlike many of Adams’ nature images, these offer us a raw and untouched glimpse into his eye for setting up and framing a photograph, instinct for finding rhythm and structure in everyday scenes, and willingness to experiment beyond the boundaries of his established aesthetic,” said Chris Rupp, interim museum director.

Adams became known for his love of nature, his pioneering efforts toward conservation and environmental stewardship, and his moral convictions regarding the United States’ internment of Japanese Americans.

“Viewed together, the photographs in this exhibition remind us that Ansel Adams was far more than the maker of pristine wilderness icons,” Rupp said.

“He was an artist attentive to the world as it was and how it ought to be. Whether documenting factory workers on the brink of war, confronting the injustice of incarceration at Manzanar, or shaping luminous visions of the Sierra, Adams used his camera to advocate for dignity, clarity and stewardship.” Rupp said.

The museum is free and open to the public weekdays 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and Saturdays 11 a.m.-5 p.m., closed on Sundays and college holidays.

To learn more visit www.westmont.edu/museum.