Arches National Park, Utah

Inscriptions

Signed, on reverse, in pen, lower left: LEN JENSHEL. Titled and

Label

Emphasizing the pristine beauty of Yosemite National Park, celebrated photographer Ansel Adams shows El Capitan looming above the lush valley floor. In a more recent image, Len Jenshel depicts a road winding around the desolate terrain of Arches National Park in this wintry scene, disrupting the conception of national parks as undisturbed landscapes.

The US government established a national park system, beginning in 1872, in order to permanently preserve lands considered ecologically or culturally significant. Far removed from rapidly growing urban centers, parks offered middle- and upper-class Americans respite and inspiration. These iconic landscapes have become enshrined in American cultural identity. Yet national parks are a direct product of the displacement of Native peoples and have continually disenfranchised rural communities along their borders. Who, then, are national parks for, and how has that changed over time?

From the 2022 exhibition This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, curated by Jami C. Powell, Curator of Indigenous Art; Barbara J. MacAdam, former Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art; Thomas H. Price, former Curatorial Assistant; Morgan E. Freeman, former DAMLI Native American Art Fellow; and Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art

Course History

ANTH 7.05, Animals and Humans, Laura Ogden, Winter 2022

GEOG 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ARTH 5.01, Introduction to Contemporary Art, Mary Coffey and Chad Elias, Winter 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

SPAN 65.15, Wonderstruck: Archives and the Production of Knowledge in an Unequal World, Silvia Spitta and Barbara Goebel, Summer 2022

Exhibition History

This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 12 - July 22, 2022.

Provenance

Larry Miller Gallery, New York, New York; sold to Jane and Raphael Bernstein, Ridgewood, New Jersey, November 21st, 1986; lent to present collection, 2010; given to present collection, 2013.

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Subjects