Crossroads Art Gallery

Fred C. Ninnis, Man in Horse-drawn Wagon on Palm Lined Road, Date unknown, Printed by Marc Blake, 1989, Silver gelatin print.The photographs represented in the Crossroads gallery are part of the Fresno Metropolitan Museum's “property collection,” works of art and artifacts that are available for educational purposes.

Fred C. Ninnis (1862 - 1953)

Photographer Fred C. Ninnis was born in England in 1862 and came to California in 1870. Mr. Ninnis worked in the cattle industry in Coarsegold and came to Fresno in 1904 where he worked with photographer Claude “Pop” Laval. He was a member of the Commercial Photographers Club, a small group of local cameramen who frequently met to exchange ideas, stories and professional advice.

Ansel Adams (1902 – 1984)

Photographer Ansel Adams was born in San Francisco, California in 1902. Mr. Adams is well-known for his landscape photographs of the American West.

Mr. Adams's Manzanar work is a departure from his signature style of landscape photography. “Manzanar War Relocation Center” was one of ten camps where Japanese American citizens and resident Japanese immigrants were interned during World War II. The photographs include portraits, views of daily life, agricultural scenes, and sports and leisure activities.

In 1965 Mr. Adams offered the collection to the Library of Congress. He stated, "The purpose of my work was to show how these people, suffering under a great injustice, and loss of property, businesses and professions, had overcome the sense of defeat and dispair [sic] by building for themselves a vital community in an arid (but magnificent) environment…All in all, I think this Manzanar Collection is an important historical document, and I trust it can be put to good use."

Please visit the Crossroads library and Website for further research.