Environmental advocacy lives on through art

Art has played an influential role in the modern environmental movement, dating all the way back to Albert Bierstadt’s 19th century landscape paintings and Carleton Watkins’ photographs of Yosemite Valley that moved President Abraham Lincoln to protect the area as parkland.

[...] in the late 1930s, Berkeley native David Brower, the first executive director of the Sierra Club, was instrumental in getting a copy of Ansel Adams’ glorious large-format Sierra Nevada portfolio into Franklin D. Roosevelt’s hands, solidifying the president’s resolve to create King’s Canyon National Park.

Brower, considered the father of modern environmentalism, used limited-edition photography books throughout his activism career to convince people of the importance of protecting America’s unspoiled wild places.

Working in a diverse range of media and responding to such threats as climate change, overuse, the effects of industry and threatened biodiversity, “these artists are inspired by our parks to create so much more than pretty pictures,” says center Executive Director Laurie Rich.

The disabled President Roosevelt, for example, like the majority of Americans in far-flung states, would never be able to visit King’s Canyon, yet Adams’ powerful images aroused a sense of responsible stewardship for the untouched wilderness.

“Today, with widespread documentary imagery available to everyone online, we’re seeing artistic work that is beautiful, but serves as more of a cautionary tale,” says Rich.

Photographer Ansley West Rivers, who received her master’s degree from California College of Art in Oakland, has embarked on a photographic project to capture the fragile watersheds of seven U.S. rivers.