Printed along poster bottom:
“Reproduced under the auspices of the California Museum of Photography, Riverside, from a contemporary print of an original Ansel Adams negative in the Sweeney/Rubin Ansel Adams Fiat Lux Collection. Published in conjunction with Ansel Adams: Fiat Lux Project. All rights and copyright entitlements granted by Ansel Adams to the Regents of the University of California, 1964. Copyright 1990 by The Regents of the University of California.”
The 2 posters for sale here:
Mountain Stream, 1965: image size approx 19 in x 19 in. Poster size approx 24 in x 32 in.
Pinetrees, Seashore, 1967: image size approx 19.5 in x 16.5 in. Poster size approx 25 in x 28 in.
The are both in excellent condition with no defects on the images. Two small borders tears on Pinetrees have been stabilized with archival tape. They are both unframed and rolled.
In 1964 Clark Kerr, who was then President of the University of California, commissioned two artists to create a portrait of the entire UC system: photographer Ansel Adams and writer Nancy Newhall. Together they worked for over three years, travelling the length and breadth of state, visiting the nine UC campuses and also its myriad research stations, observatories, natural reserves and agricultural extensions. The result was a book called Fiat Lux published in 1967 for the University of California's centennial the following year. Also in 1967, just as the book was going into production, the UC Board of Regents under the presidency of Governor Ronald Reagan dramatically fired Clark Kerr. In such a tumultuous climate, the University became apprehensive about even publishing the book, according to Ansel Adams, who said, "everybody at the University was scared to print it." Their fear, presumably, was the possibility of incurring the wrath of the newly elected California governor since Reagan rose to power on a platform of "cleaning up the mess at Berkeley" —- a mess he believed was caused by the permissiveness of Kerr in the face of student protests.
While the Fiat Lux project was in many ways eclipsed by historic events, it represents an extraordinary time capsule, massive in scale and breathtaking scope. Most notable is its optimistic vision of vast, expansive horizons —- a perspective that seems quite remote today, a time of massive disinvestment in public higher education, rapidly increasing tuition, and skyrocketing educational debt, which now exceeds consumer debt nationally.
Representing one of the largest projects of Ansel Adams' career, the Fiat Lux archive contains over 6,700 negatives and 600 fine prints, all of which the UC Regents own. After Yosemite, the University of California appears to be Adams' most documented subject.