Photo Exhibit Facts

I would like to correct a paragraph of misinformation in the article, “Photo Review/Commissioned Series Suffers Next to Ansel Adams’ Classics,” (Calendar, March 6).

Regarding the “Fiat Lux” series, Ms. Freudenheim states that Ansel Adams shot these pictures for a planned book to commemorate the University of California’s 100th anniversary in 1968. She goes on to say that, because of the revolts in the late 1960s on the Berkeley campus, the project was aborted before the book was published. I would like you to know that the book was published as planned in 1967. We have a first edition of “FIAT LUX The University of California,” Ansel Adams & Nancy Newhall, A Centennial Publication of the University of California, McGraw-Hill Book Co.

On page 192 of this book, Adams writes: “The general approach was intentionally forthright; the character of the subject did not favor highly stylized or forced images. The complex character of the university, its environment and its people, demanded a certain emphasis on reality.”

If Ms. Freudenheim had been aware of the book and had read it, she might have understood its purpose and not tried to compare it to the companion exhibit, “The Museum Set.” She did the exhibit and the Ansel Adams photographs of the University of California a great disservice.

BETTY OLSON, San Diego