In partnership with California State Parks and the Nevada County Library, the monthly Sierra Speaker Series connects folks to the rich cultural and natural history of the area. Join us at Donner Memorial State Park Visitor Center to learn and engage! The presentation is to follow at 4 pm. Admission is a suggested $5 donation. Light refreshments and wines, sponsored by Highway 12 Winery, will be available. No registration required.

A predecessor to the more celebrated Ansel Adams, Western landscape photographer Carleton Watkins is known for his large-format, scenic portrayals of Yosemite, the Sierra Nevada, and the Oregon Coast. In this analysis of ten selected photographs from Stanford University’s Special Collections archive, Alice Wilson considers Watkins’ visual expression as a documentarian and interpreter of the West during the period 1850 to 1875. While Watkins images the majesty of Western landscape, he also records its environmental degradation. Wilson argues that Watkins’ innovative photography complicates the romantic portrayal of the American West by landscape painters of the time, suggesting that human use of natural resources may threaten the environment, and positioning Watkins among early advocates for conservation.

Alice Wilson lectures on land use at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is a five-time recipient of Club 6 honors, as voted by students for engaged teaching. Her graduate work at Stanford University focused on photography and art history of the American West. Additionally, she is a former docent at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art and has been a speaker for Tahoe City’s Gatekeepers Museum Historical Talk Series.