A few years back I had the opportunity to go on a class trip to the home of a very famous alumnus of the San Francisco Art Institute, my own alma mater. Though when Pirkle Jones took his first class at SFAI after serving in the army during World War II, it was still called the California Institute of Fine Arts. Furthermore, by the time he became a student he had already made quite a name for himself in the camera club scene during the 1930s. Nonetheless, he was able to grow exponentially under the influence of such master as Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston and Minor White.
Unfortunately, the trip never took place. Pirkle, already well advanced in age by then, had cancelled due to illness. Age finally did catch up with him on March 15 of this year, when he passed away in Mill Valley at the age of 95. He was one of the most admired photographers of his generation and leaves behind a body of work that spans roughly seventy years and documents some of the most important social and environmental changes that occurred in California during the last half of the 20th Century.
Jones worked as Ansel Adams’ assistant for six years during the late 40s and early 50s. They formed a life-long friendship and Adams quickly acquainted Jones with the San Francisco art scene. In 1956 Dorothea Lange asked Jones to help her on a project documenting the destructive impact of the Monticello Dam project, which eventually led to the total immersion of the Berryessa Valley and the disappearance of various small communities therein. The work culminated in a book titled The Death of a Valley, one of the most important and significant photographic essays of the late 20th Century, and one that helped fuel the emergence of the environmental movement during the 1960s.
Pirkle continued to produce work that documented the changing landscape and demographic of Central California. In 1961, Jones and his wife—the poet Ruth-Marion Baruch—photographed the town of Walnut Grove. Once a bustling agricultural hub of migrant workers and immigrants, Walnut Grove faced virtual extinction during the early sixties due to the construction of the interstate highway system that bypassed the town and all but emptied it of its population.
In 1968, Ruth-Marion befriended Kathleen Cleaver, the wife of the Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver. She and Pirkle eventually decided to photograph the Black Panthers in order to counter their treatment by the media. This collaboration took place during the height of the party’s power and at a time when tensions between the Black Panthers and the police were at an all-time high. Jones and his wife produced some of the most iconic images of the party leaders of the time and eventually published them in book form under the title Black Panthers.
Jones continued to work and teach at the San Francisco Art Institute up until 1994. In 1997, his long-time collaborative partner and wife of 49 years passed away. I have posted a nice obituary produced for YouTube by DaylightArts that also features some samples of Pirkle’s work. I hope you enjoy it and that it will help you to appreciate the life and work of one of America’s finest photographers, who continues to be an inspiration to many in the field.
—T. Rosenberg
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