The Golden Decade: Photography at the California School of Fine Arts 1945-55

After WWII the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA) in San Francisco hired well-known photographer Ansel Adams to establish one of the first fine art photography departments in the United States. The caliber of teachers and guest instructors assembled at the CSFA under the new directorship of Douglas McAgy was unmatched anywhere, and the school had the reputation of being one of the most avant-garde art schools of its time. On hand were photographers Ansel Adams and Minor White, along with Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Imogen Cunningham, Lisette Model, Nancy and Beaumont Newhall, and Homer Page. Three of the former students of Ansel Adams and Minor White—Ira H. Latour, C. Cameron Macauley and William Heick, later known as the “Three Musketeers”— began planning a book that would focus on CSFA’s Photography Department, covering the years between 1945 and 1955, the period some have referred to as “The Golden Decade.” It was a lucky coincidence when Ken Ball and his wife Victoria Whyte Ball (whose father, Don Whyte, had bequeathed them countless negatives and contact prints from his student years at CSFA) joined them. Together, the team embarked on a long journey into the past.