The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust released a statement on Saturday slamming the recent decision by New York’s Danziger Gallery to offer an AI-generated artwork referencing the famed photographer’s work at the 2026 edition of the AIPAD Photography Show in April.
The artwork, which still appears on Danziger’s website, does not contain a title but is headlined A.I. GENERATED, From the prompt: Make a realistic color version of Ansel Adams’ iconic “Moonrise Over Hernandez”. It is listed as printed by master printer Esteban Mauchi. Danziger offered the piece in its booth at the fair—which ran from April 22 to April 26—alongside work by Seydou Keïta, Hoda Afshar, and Matthew Porter, among others.
In the statement, the trust said it “did not authorize, endorse, consent to, or acquiesce” to the work being exhibited or offered for sale and claimed that the piece “exploited Ansel’s name, reputation, and his most iconic image, while failing to identify any human artist responsible for its creation.” The trust said further that it was not notified by the gallery prior to its appearance and that, once it was alerted, it reached out to Danziger to have the work removed, which the gallery appears not to have done.
“Ansel was an innovator who expanded the expressive and technical possibilities of his medium. He was remarkably prescient about—and excited by—the potential of computers to transform photography. The Trust’s concerns are not about AI or creative experimentation in the abstract. This is fundamentally about artists’ rights and moral rights—and respect for human dignity,” the trust said, in a post on Instagram.
Danziger, which was founded in 1989, did not return a request for comment from ARTnews at press time. However, on Monday, founder James Danziger released a statement on the gallery’s website claiming responsibilty for the creation of AI-generated image. Danziger defended his right to create the image, citing Moonrise‘s public domain status, and said he did so “with great respect to the image and the artist. ” Further, he described the response at the fair as “largely positive” with most negative comments “direcvted at AI.” He claimed that Adams’s photo served as a “starting point” for a “transformative” image that involved “extensive human intervention, editing, proofing, and refinement.”
“As the image is in the public domain I had every right to create a new and transformative work,” Danziger wrote. “My interest in doing this was based on my love of the iconic image, my interest in seeing how A.I. could be used as a tool for creativity, and to create an imagining of what Adams saw in real life as he was driving along US. Highway 84 that made him stop his Pontiac station wagon and scramble to set up his bulky 8×10 view camera as the sun was setting on the adobe church and cemetery crosses while the moon appeared through the clouds.”
Danziger closed his statement with a quote from Adams that he seemed to infer indicated that the photographer would have been okay with his alteration of the image.
Several prominent figures in photography responded in the comments of the Trust’s post to voice their displeasure with the situation. Longtime White House photographer Pete Souza wrote that Danziger’s decision to offer the image was “morally wrong” and “endangers the rights of all photographers.” Pulitzer Prize–winning photojournalist David Hume Kennerly wrote that he was a friend of Adams and posited that the photographer “would have hated this rip-off.”
This isn’t the first time the trust has gotten into a dust-up over AI-generated images trading on Adams’s name. In 2024, the trust publicly denounced Adobe for including AI-generated images in its stock catalogue that referenced “Ansel Adams-Style Photography.” Adobe’s official terms of use at the time banned users from uploading AI-generated images “created using prompts containing other artist names, or created using prompts otherwise intended to copy another artist.” After the trust took its dispute public, Adobe said it removed the content.
Editor’s Note, 5/25/2026: This article has been updated with a statement from gallery founder James Danziger.
