The Ansel Adams discovery snagged a great big controversy as family members of the late photographer dub the negatives as fake.
Rick Norsigian found old negatives in a garage sale which he purchased for US$45. The negatives turned out to be unpublished photos of landscape photographer legend Ansel Adams. Norsigian’s investment went up from US$45 to US$200 million!
However family member of the American are crying ‘fraud’. This is in spite the team of experts having gone over the 65 glass plates of negatives now owned by Norsigian and found the photos to be the work of Adams.
Adams grandson said “There is no real hard evidence. I’m skeptical.”
Bill Turnage, managing director of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust, said: “It’s an unfortunate fraud. It’s very distressing.”
A team of California lawyers forms an authentication team hired by Norsigian. The party claimed that two handwriting experts confirm that the writing (on the envelope in which the negatives) were found belonged to Adams wife.
Norsigian also consulted with a meteorologist who confirmed that the cloud formations were the same as the day that Adams took his famous Yosemite photo.
According to Telegraph UK reports other photography experts are claiming the photos to be authentic. “It truly is a missing link of Ansel Adams and history and his career,” said David Streets, a Los Angeles art dealer and appraiser who is hosting an exhibition of the photographs.
Norsigian is charging $7,500 for prints from the negatives and Mr Streets estimated that the set could be worth at least $200 million.
Patrick Alt, a photography expert who believes the negatives are authentic, has said the collection showed Adams “trying to discover his voice” and “illuminates a very important part of his evolution as an artist because this is the work that he did in his twenties”.
He added: “In almost all of the photographs, the compositions are virtually flawless, truly being made by a photographer of singular vision and talent.”
Check other articles about Ansel Adams here.
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July 30, 2010
8:54 am
Hmm.
The named expert called Patrick Alt.
that would be the same Mr Alt who is a member of the Association of Erotic Artists, who sells “large format platinum/paladium landscape and nude photography”.
not sure how that qualifies him any more than me or anyone else as an expert on Ansel Adams.
The only real link seems to be a disputed attribution of the handwriting on some of the envelopes as being that of Ansel’s wife – BUT the entries contain spelling mistakes which some say would not be made by an educated woman who was very familiar with the areas being photographed (and therefore knew how to correctly spell all the place names).
Technical point – the article refers to “65 rolls of negatives”.
That should surely read 65 glass plates (ansel used large format cameras that take glass plates or film sheets, not rolls.
The family of ansel are basically saying that ansel was careful with his negatives (especially following a fire). They have asked for the burn marks on the new negs to be carbon dated – a request refused by the holder of the negs!
looks like someone might have something to hide …
July 30, 2010
9:18 am
according to the Washington Post “Adams taught at the Pasadena Art Center in the early 1940s”.
Wonder if the negs will end up being attributed to what the art history buffs would call “School of Adams”.
They would then only be worth a fraction of the value of the work of the master.
August 1, 2010
11:51 pm
You are great Peter! Thanks for the very informative comments!!
August 8, 2010
4:21 pm
looks like I was right to have doubts …