The George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum will be the first venue to host the Grand Canyon Photographs exhibit featuring photographs taken at Grand Canyon National Park and surrounding areas by American photographer Mark Burns.
The project was conceived by Burns to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the establishment of Grand Canyon National Park in 1919. The exhibit will be on display in the Bush Library and Museum’s Fidelity Gallery beginning March 1 and runs through June 9.
Centered around the centennial anniversary of Grand Canyon National Park in 2019, the exhibit celebrates the visual image and the role it has played in the history and creation of our national parks. The photographs were taken between 2011 to 2018 and explore multiple genres of photography such as traditional black & white and color landscape, contemporary landscape and pictorialism.
"I wanted to explore a variety of photographic genres with this project," Burns says. "For me, it's not really about photographing what I'm seeing, but rather what I'm feeling. This is especially important when you're talking about something as vast and majestic as the Grand Canyon. This exhibit has plenty of traditional pieces, but there will also be some conceptual works as well."
In 2016, President George H.W. Bush registered his strong approval of his friend Mark Burn's past exhibit The National Parks Photography Project and penned the following quote:
“Already a gifted and accomplished photographer, Mark has devoted years of his life to studying and then traveling to all 59 of America’s National Parks to photograph them in new, and sometimes familiar, ways. Along the way, Mark has clearly mastered the medium of black and white photography. And, in my view, he has earned distinction as a modern-day Ansel Adams.”
Located on the campus of Texas A&M University, the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum is part of the National Archives and Records Administration's Presidential Libraries system. The Bush Library and Museum is located at 1000 George Bush Drive West, College Station, TX, and is open Monday through Saturday from 9:30am to 5pm and Sunday from 12pm to 5pm, with the exceptions of Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. The museum is fully handicapped accessible. For more information, call (979) 691-4000 or visit www.bush41.org.
