Pirkle Jones (American, 1914-2009) 7 Minutes From Shell, circa 1965 Gelatin silver print 7-5/8 x 9-1/2 inches (19.4 x 24.1 cm) (image) 8 x 10 inches (sheet) Photographer's Mill Valley stamp, verso. Pirkle Jones and the California Roadside Council Pirkle Jones was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. He acquired a Kodak Brownie when he was 17 and exhibited at camera clubs in the 1930s. After serving in the army, Pirkle enrolled in the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, where he studied with Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston, and Minor White. From 1947 to 1953 he worked as an assistant to Adams and the two artists remained lifelong friends. He also met and married fellow photographer Ruth-Marion Baruch and the two artists documented social, political and environmental change in the San Francisco Bay Area. The California Roadside Council was founded in 1929 and incorporated in 1941. Its initial purpose was the beautification of California's roads and highways through lobbying for the removal of the proliferation of roadside billboards and signs that were seen as an eyesore. The Council later broadened its purpose to include the promotion of community action toward the preservation, creation and development of elements of beauty in California communities. Pirkle Jones was an active member of the council and served as a board member for Marin County. Beginning in the mid-1950s he began to document the golden state's "chaotic overabundance of signs." Thirteen of his photographs appeared in the Council's 1960 publication More Attractive Communities for California. Unlike Berenice Abbott's series Changing New York, which documented historical buildings and neighborhoods that were threatened with demolition, Jones documented what he and the Council wanted to be torn down. These photographs can be considered early examples of the New Topographics, a term coined in 1975 to describe a new group of photographers whose pictures showed unromanticized views of stark industrial landscapes, suburban sprawl, and the banality of everyday scenes. In 1965, the California senate passed the Highway Beautification Act to control outdoor advertising and encourage scenic roadside development. By 1996 the California Roadside Council had ceased operation. The photographs offered here were commissioned by John Harvey Carter, a prominent architect in Sacramento, who designed over 400 buildings in northern California. One of his life's goals was "to make the world beautiful." He was a board member of for Sacramento County and by 1973 was Vice President of the Council. Several of these photographs were used in the 1972 Council publication Signs in California. HID03101062020 © 2020 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved