A prophet in the wilderness of modernity, the photographer Robert Adams has devoted almost five decades to decrying what fecklessly industrious humans have done to the landscape of the American West.

“Robert Adams: The Place we Live,” a splendid retrospective exhibition of more than 250 prints dating from the 1960s to 2009 at the Yale University Art Gallery here, surveys an oeuvre that is as compelling for its understated style as for its moral ferocity. Accompanied by a beautiful three-volume catalog produced by Yale University Press in collaboration with Mr. Adams, the exhibition was organized by Joshua Chuang, the gallery’s assistant curator of photographs, and Jock Reynolds, its director.