The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 21, 2025

South of Rocky Flats, Jefferson County, Colorado

1978

Robert Adams

(American, b. 1937)
America
gelatin silver print
Image: 22 x 28.4 cm (8 11/16 x 11 3/16 in.); Paper: 27.7 x 35.3 cm (10 7/8 x 13 7/8 in.); Matted: 40.6 x 50.8 cm (16 x 20 in.)
Gift of the American Express Foundation 1985.124
© Robert Adams
Location: Not on view

Description

Adams’s influential landscape photographs are poetic documentations of a world that, in the artist’s words, is "a troubling mixture" of ugliness, beauty, chaos, and alchemic order. South of Rocky Flats, Jefferson County, Colorado, is exemplary of his documentary style that acknowledges the formal beauty and the enveloping illumination associated with the American West, his favorite subject, while recording the impact of humanity on the environment. The grandeur of the Rocky Mountains is visible as well as the physical infrastructure necessary to facilitate the annexation of this open land for development. In the foreground, the numerous tire tracks suggest that this location is a popular spot to enjoy the scenic view.
  • Turner, Evan H. "The Year in Review for 1985." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 73, no. 2 (1986): 26-71. p. 64, no. 53 25159930
    Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996. Reproduced: P. 79
  • Contemporary Landscape Photography. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 26-August 14, 2011).
    Robert Adams Photography. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 3-June 23, 1985).
  • {{cite web|title=South of Rocky Flats, Jefferson County, Colorado|url=false|author=Robert Adams|year=1978|access-date=21 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1985.124