Pioneering photography of Philip Hyde
Virginia Creeper, Northern Sierra Nevada, California (Photo © Philip Hyde)
It’s history in the making: The work of two of California’s most prominent outdoor photographers and wilderness advocates will be exhibited in the same building for the first time ever. The landscape photography of the late Philip Hyde will be on display at Galen Rowell’s world-class Mountain Light Gallery from May 8 through Aug. 31.
The exhibition will include more than 40 archival pigment prints and several original vintage Philip Hyde Cibachrome, Dye Transfer and black and white silver prints. New prints will be on exhibit of Hyde’s unpublished work that the public has never seen before in any form.
Hyde’s son, David Leland Hyde will speak about his father’s life and work at an artist’s reception May 8, from 6-9 p.m. The reception is open to the public.
Born in San Francisco in 1921, Philip Hyde was a pioneer of the West Coast tradition. He made his first backcountry fine art photograph in 1942 and gradually lost his eyesight 1999-2000. Hyde trained with Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Minor White and other definers of the medium at the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute. Hyde’s photographs helped protect such national treasures as the Grand Canyon, Dinosaur National Monument, Canyonlands, the Coast Redwoods, Point Reyes, the North Cascades, King’s Canyon, Big Sur and many others.
Both Hyde and Galen Rowell were contributors to the groundbreaking Sierra Club Exhibit Format Series and both were regularly featured in the Sierra Club Bulletin, Sierra Magazine, Outdoor Photographer and other publications in common. Hyde and Rowell are two of only three honorary members of the International League of Conservation Photographers.
The two master photographers used different methods, equipment and style in making photographs, but their photographic philosophies were strikingly similar and their feelings about wilderness were parallel. “My basic concern has been with what Emerson called ‘the integrity of natural objects,’” Hyde said. “I want to avoid pouring nature into a mold.” In a similar vein Rowell wrote, “I want my subject matter to be part of a genuine experience rather than a scene created for the camera.”
For more information about Philip Hyde, please visit his site at www.PhilipHyde.com. For more information about upcoming events at Mountain Light Gallery, please visit www.mountainlight.com or call 760.873.7700.
