GEORGE ALEXANDER GRANT

GRANT

A lot of photographs filter through the hallowed halls

of Arizona Highways. We see a lot of photography books, too. Some of them get lost in the shuffle, and others catch our eye. That's what happened with Landscapes for the People: George Alexander Grant, First Chief Photographer of the National Park Service. It's a long title, but it's an excellent book that features the work of one of America's least-known landscape photographers. Unlike Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Eliot Porter, few have ever heard of George A. Grant. As Ren and Helen Davis write in the foreword of their book: “Little attention has been paid to the National Park Service's own photographers. The first — and by general acclaim the best — official NPS photographer was George A. Grant.”In addition to being first, he was ambitious. “In a remarkable career extending across a quarter century and 140,000 miles,” they write, “Grant made more than 30,000 photographs. His subjects ranged from archaeological artifacts and natural history specimens to visitor activities and scenic landscapes.”As you might expect, many of those photographs were made in Arizona parks, including Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, Chiricahua National Monument and Grand Canyon National Park. He also ventured outside the parks, to places such as Mission San Xavier del Bac, the Kofa Mountains and Hopi tribal land, where he made one of the best photos we've ever seen of the ancient city of Walpi.

“His understated style may not have impressed contemporary critics, but the technical and compositional sophistication of [Grant's] photographs secured his reputation among agency officials and magazine editors, who clamored for his work.”— Timothy Davis, Ph.D.

George Alexander Grant photographed Mission San Xavier del Bac, on Tohono O'odham land near Tucson, in September 1935. The following month, he joined a National Park Service survey expedition to several 17th century Spanish missions in northern Mexico. AH