Cedric Wright

George Cedric Wright (April 13, 1889 – 1959) was an American violinist and a wilderness photographer of the High Sierra. He was Ansel Adams's mentor and best friend for decades, and accompanied Adams when three of his most famous photographs were taken. He was a longtime participant in the annual wilderness High Trips sponsored by the Sierra Club.

Cedric Wright was born and raised in Alameda, California. His father was a successful attorney, and one of his father's clients was astronomer Charles Hitchcock Adams, Ansel Adams's father. Cedric's uncle, William Hammond Wright, was also an astronomer who became head of Lick Observatory. As a result of his father's success, Wright was financially comfortable throughout his life.

His first wife was Mildred Sahlström, and they had a daughter, Alberta. After they divorced, he married pianist and piano teacher Rhea Ufford in 1929. They had a daughter, Joanne, and a son, David.

Wright was motivated to become a violinist when he heard a performance by Fritz Kreisler. After study in the United States, he spent seven years studying with Otakar Ševčík in Prague and Vienna.

Wright was known as a "distinguished violinist", and was a violin teacher at the University of California Extension and Mills College for many years. Renowned violin teacher and conductor Louis Persinger called him "one of the foremost performers and instructors in the West". In 1934, arthritis brought an early end to his professional career as a violinist, and he then decided to pursue his hobby of photography as a career.

Wright first met Ansel Adams at a family gathering at the Wright family vacation home in the Santa Cruz Mountains when Cedric was about 21 and Ansel was about 8 years old. They encountered each other again on a four-week wilderness High Trip in Yosemite National Park, organized by the Sierra Club in 1923. Nancy Newhall wrote, "On that first High Trip, Ansel found himself drawn to one Cedric Wright, a violinist, who could fiddle by the fire deep into the night and still be among the first up, making a little fire of twigs..."

Their friendship, which continued until Wright's death in 1959, was described by Mary Street Alinder as an "intense comradeship". The men shared a deep interest in both classical music and photography, since Adams was an accomplished classical pianist. Wright introduced Adams to the writings of the British philosopher Edward Carpenter, whose thoughts helped shape both men's world views. Together, they discussed the works of other writers, including Elbert Hubbard and Walt Whitman.

Back in the Bay Area after their initial 1923 wilderness journey together had ended, Adams became a part of Wright's social circle of musicians and Sierra Club activists who gathered at his Berkeley home. Adams "idolized" Wright, and he followed in Wright's footsteps by taking long trips into the wilderness of the Sierra Nevada each summer, photographing the remote mountain peaks.