Editing Ansel Adams (section)

===Photography department at {{Abbr|MoMA|Museum of Modern Art}}===
In 1940, with trustee David H. McAlpin and curator [[Beaumont Newhall]], Adams helped establish the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.<ref name="Soccio 2016" /> {{Abbr|MoMA|Museum of Modern Art}} was the first major American art museum to establish a photography department.{{Sfn | O'Toole | 2010}}<ref>{{Cite journal | year = 2013 | doi = 10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.B2230305| isbn = 978-0-19-977378-7 | title = Adams, Ansel Easton | journal = Benezit Dictionary of Artists }}</ref> Adams acted as McAlpin and Newhall's primary advisor;{{Sfn | O'Toole | 2010 | p = 14}} [[Peter Galassi]], the chief curator of the department in later years, said "Adams's dedication and boundless energy were vital to the creation of the department and to its programs in its early years."<ref>{{Citation | publisher = Museum of Modern Art | title = The Museum of Modern Art in Queens Presents Last Chance to View Ansel Adams Centennial Exhibition | date = July 9, 2003 | url = https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_press-release_387051.pdf | access-date = December 2, 2018 | archive-date = December 2, 2018 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20181202112652/https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_press-release_387051.pdf | url-status = live }}</ref> For those who had sought institutional recognition for photography as art, the founding of the department was an important moment, marking the medium's recognition as a subject equal to painting and sculpture.{{Sfn | O'Toole | 2010 | p = 10}}

On December 31, 1940, the department opened its first exhibition, ''Sixty Photographs: A Survey of Camera Esthetics'',<ref name="MoMA 2018">{{cite web | title = Sixty Photographs: A Survey of Camera Esthetics | work = The Museum of Modern Art | access-date = December 1, 2018 | url = https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2089 | archive-date = December 2, 2018 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20181202112649/https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2089 | url-status = live }}</ref> which resembled large survey exhibitions that Adams and Newhall had previously mounted independently.{{Sfn | O'Toole | 2010 | p = 174}} The exhibition took aesthetic quality as a guiding principle,{{Sfn | O'Toole | 2010 | p = 10}} a philosophy that ran counter to that of many writers and critics, who argued that the medium's more vernacular use as a means of communication should be more fully represented.{{Sfn | O'Toole | 2010 | p = 13}} Photographer [[Ralph Steiner]], writing for ''[[PM (newspaper)|PM]]'', remarked "on the whole it [MoMA] seems to regard photography as soft music at high tea rather than as a jazz at a beefsteak supper."{{Sfn | O'Toole | 2010 | p = 180}} Tom Maloney, publisher of ''U.S. Camera'', wrote that the exhibition was "very choice, very pristine, very small, very ultra."{{Sfn | O'Toole | 2010 | p = 181}} According to Newhall, the exhibition was meant to showcase artistic excellence and "not to define but to suggest the possibilities of photographic vision."<ref name="MoMA 2018" />