AI Image Based on Ansel Adams Work Draws Trust’s Rebuke at AIPAD
A new dispute over artificial intelligence, authorship, and photographic legacy has emerged from the 2026 AIPAD Photography Show in New York. The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust has publicly criticized Danziger Gallery for exhibiting and offering for sale an AI-generated work that referenced Ansel Adams’ “Moonrise Over Hernandez.”
The piece, which still appears on Danziger’s website, is listed without a title and is identified as “A.I. GENERATED, From the prompt: Make a realistic color version of Ansel Adams’ iconic “Moonrise Over Hernandez”.” It is also described as printed by master printer Esteban Mauchi. Danziger presented the work at its booth during the fair, which ran from April 22 to April 26, alongside photographs by Seydou Keïta, Hoda Afshar, and Matthew Porter, among others.
In a statement, the trust said it “did not authorize, endorse, consent to, or acquiesce” to the work being shown or sold. It argued that the image exploited Adams’ name, reputation, and most recognizable photograph while failing to identify any human artist responsible for its creation. The trust also said it was not notified before the work appeared at the fair and that, once alerted, it contacted Danziger to request its removal. The gallery appears not to have taken it down.
The trust framed its objection as a matter of artists’ rights and moral rights rather than a blanket rejection of AI. In an Instagram post, it said Adams was an innovator who expanded photography’s technical and expressive possibilities and was notably open to the potential of computers. “The Trust’s concerns are not about AI or creative experimentation in the abstract,” it wrote. “This is fundamentally about artists’ rights and moral rights — and respect for human dignity.”
Danziger, founded in 1989, has not publicly addressed the controversy and did not respond to a request for comment.
The dispute quickly drew reactions from prominent photographers. Pete Souza called the decision “morally wrong” and said it “endangers the rights of all photographers.” David Hume Kennerly, who said he knew Adams, wrote that the photographer “would have hated this rip-off.”
The episode is not the first time the trust has challenged AI uses of Adams’s name. In 2024, it objected to Adobe’s inclusion of AI-generated images labeled “Ansel Adams-Style Photography” in its stock catalog. After the trust made the dispute public, Adobe removed the content.
As galleries and platforms continue to test the boundaries of AI-assisted image making, the Adams case underscores how quickly questions of style can become questions of ownership, credit, and consent.
