Nancy Newhall (1908–1974)

Nancy Newhall, née Wynne, was born in Lynn, Massachusetts. She attended Smith College and became a member of the Art Students League in New York City. She married Beaumont Newhall, curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and substituted for him in that role during his military service in World War II. In the 1940s, she wrote essays on popular art and culture for small magazines and journals.

In 1945, she wrote the text for a book of photographs, Time in New England, by Paul Strand, which began a new phase in her career -- she became a vocal proponent and central pioneer of the photography book as an art form, particularly the genre of oversized photos. The best known and most influential of her 22 works is This Is the American Earth, a collaboration with Ansel Adams, published in 1960. Like Adams, Newhall was involved with the Sierra Club, and wrote often about issues of conservation.

She died at age 66 in Jackson Hole, Wyoming from injuries received in an accident on the Snake River of Grand Teton National Park.