Summit : Vittorio Sella : Mountaineer and Photographer : The Years 1879-1909

Weighted with heavy, nineteenth-century camera equipment, Vittorio Sella climbed some of the world's most mysterious, perilous peaks and photographed them, many for the first time. His strikingly elegant photographs, which in Ansel Adams's words, "revealed [the mountains] in all their sheer majesty," offer groundbreaking scientific and documentary information as well. Climbers today still use Sella's pictures to map out routes and to better comprehend their challenges and the magnificence to come.Through Sella's images, we can witness the grandeur of the world's greatest peaks; the Russian Caucasus, the Saint Elias Range in Alaska, Mount Ruwenzori in Africa, the Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas. His photographic documentation of these peaks had no precedents and has few, if any, equals.Greg Child is a mountaineer and author of Thin Air (Dell, 1993). Wendy Watson is curator of exhibitions at Mount Holyoke College. Paul Kallmes, a renowned member of the American Alpine Club, has worked closely with the Fondazione Sella for several years.Published in association with Fondazione Sella and the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum.