Powerful Ansel Adams show centers his love for nature – and the peril it’s in

Ansel Adams (American, 1902–1984) The Tetons and Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, 1942 The Lane Collection. Photograph: Ansel Adams/The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust

From towering granite monoliths to textured tree trunks, Ansel Adams’s renowned black and white photographs have offered generations the chance to see the beauty and importance of nature through his eyes.

Now a new exhibit at San Francisco’s de Young fine arts museum gives viewers a new way to connect to the artist himself. Ansel Adams in Our Time, on display from 8 April through 23 July, brings together more than a 100 of Adams’s works alongside 23 contemporary photographers who reflect and build on it. The exhibition also returns Adams to the city where he launched his career and continues the conversations he began about conservation and national parks in his first exhibition at San Francisco’s de Young museum nearly a century ago.

Ansel Adams (American, 1902–1984) Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, 1960. Photograph: Ansel Adams/The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust