Photographer Tad Nichols (1911–2000) first ran the Colorado River through Glen Canyon in 1950, experiencing a labyrinthine world of twisting slot canyons, flowing streams, magnificent amphitheaters, and naked red rock. For the next 13 years until the Glen Canyon Dam was completed and Lake Powell began to fill in 1963, Nichols journeyed through what is often called “America’s lost national park.”
Working for the Sierra Club and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Nichols’ artistic ... view more »
Photographer Tad Nichols (1911–2000) first ran the Colorado River through Glen Canyon in 1950, experiencing a labyrinthine world of twisting slot canyons, flowing streams, magnificent amphitheaters, and naked red rock. For the next 13 years until the Glen Canyon Dam was completed and Lake Powell began to fill in 1963, Nichols journeyed through what is often called “America’s lost national park.”
Working for the Sierra Club and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Nichols’ artistic photographs provide one of the most extensive historical portraits of Glen Canyon before the dam. Nichols passed away just after his book, “Glen Canyon: Images of a Lost World,” was published in 1999. The book is out of print, but it contains the best photographic documentation of what many consider the most beautiful canyon system in the Southwest.
Glen Canyon is finally emerging because Lake Powell water levels are dropping at an incredible speed. Dawn Kish, a conservation photographer and filmmaker, was given Nichols’ 4×5 film camera a few years ago by Nichols’ friend and printer, Richard Jackson, and she is now returning to Glen Canyon to expose what she finds.
Over the past nine months, Kish started to write to Tad in her journal about creating art and documenting this reemergence.
July 8 – September 2, 2023 in the Project Gallery
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