Quite frankly, the are-they/aren't-they brouhaha over the Ansel Adams "Lost Negatives" in recent weeks rubbed us at Raw File the wrong way. The dispute remains unresolved and, to us at least, its impact doesn't seem that significant. There is a lot more intrigue, plots and plotting in the stories of other photographic archives. Let's catch up on the Adams' "Lost Negatives" saga before moving on to four very different recent archive discoveries.
The "Lost Negatives" - Rick Norsigian vs. The Ansel Adams Estate
In 2000, Rick Norsigian eyed a box of 65 negatives at a Fresno garage sale. The seller wanted $75, Norsigian haggled him down to $45. Last week, after ten years of ruminations and politicking, an expert panel (largely assembled by Norsigian) attributed the negatives as the work of Ansel Adams.
The story was newsroom gold; a feel good tale of fortune implicating one of America's best-loved artistic heroes. The valuation of $200 million given to the Norsigian trove was reported almost entirely without challenge.
But nothing involving monies and legacy is ever so simple. Enter Marion Walton. As she sat in her Oakland home watching TV, Walton an 87 year old former secretary and grandmother of four, saw Norsigian's picture of the Jeffrey Pine on Yosemite's Sentinel Dome on her screen. She claims that she immediately recognized the photograph as one by her uncle, Earl Brooks.
William Turnage, managing trustee in charge of administering the rights to publish or reproduce Adams' work and Michael Adams (Ansel's Grandson) seized on Walton's testimony. The Adams Estate had always disputed Norsigian's version of history (presented last week to the world's press) in which the 65 negatives, thrown into a bathtub of water, survived a 1937 Adams' studio fire.
The doors were blown off the debate once-more.
Two things should be said at this moment - firstly, the valuation of $200 million is far-fetched. Secondly, the Norsigian plates don't present us with much new. A.D. Coleman, who has worked as a photography critic and writer for over 30 years, argues, "I doubt these negatives, if validated as authentic, will teach us anything new about Adams, because I don’t think there’s anything left to learn. [...] A few dozen 'new' Adams images from his early days won’t force any serious reconsideration of his already exhaustively overconsidered and vastly overestimated oeuvre. The thought of yet another Adams book and show makes me cringe reflexively."
Even if the negatives are proven as authentic Adams, Turnage claims they're of little value; it is only Ansel Adams' own darkroom magic that delivers true value in the form of a crafted print. That said, Turnage has also likened Norsigian's claims to the lies of Nazi propaganda. Things are getting nasty.
Away from the sensation, contest and vituperation of the Norsigian saga, Raw File would like to deflect your attention to other (authenticated) lost and wandering archives discovered in recent years. Read on.
Howard Simmons
In 2007, Dave Mata, a young DJ hired as a casual laborer clearing a warehouse in Wicker Park, Chicago found over 500 works by Howard Simmons – photographs of Jesse Jackson, Dizzy Gillespie, Michael Jordan, negatives of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., negatives of Abbie Hoffman and negatives of Lyndon Johnson.
Simmons had tried to return to the warehouse site - his former studio - years earlier but was refused access by the contractor. He assumed the works lost. He also underestimated their importance until they were rediscovered.
"I can't believe I forgot that I shot James Brown," Simmons said, shaking his head while looking through the box of negatives. "I shot so many people and so many places, so many times—man."
The Mexican Suitcase - Robert Capa, Gerda Taro & Chim
In December 2007, the International Center of Photography (ICP) "brought home" The Mexican Suitcase. It contained a cache of 126 rolls of film with negatives of Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and David Seymour (known as "Chim"), three of the major photographers of the Spanish Civil War.
In 1995, the Suitcase was discovered by Mexican filmmaker Benjamin Tarver. It had been among General Aguilar's effects which Tarver inherited after the death of his aunt, who was a friend of the General. The story of how they arrived in Mexico is filled with conjecture and wonderful turns. At various points, the negatives were thought to be buried in the French countryside or hidden in the basement of various South American consulates; they'd been "couriered" by Csiki Weiss, Robert Capa's darkroom manager. "In 1939, when the Germans approached Paris," said Csiki, "I put all Bob's negatives in a rucksack and bicycled it to Bordeaux." The trove was then passed off to a departing Chilean national.
In 1941–42, in circumstances unknown, the negatives were passed into the possession of General Francisco Aguilar González, the Mexican ambassador to the Vichy government.
For over four decades, leads dried up with stories of other works and notebooks of Capa and Taro emerging and throwing historians off the scent. Despite Tarver's 1995 discovery and his letter in which he expressed the desire to make the material public, "... [to] become an archive available to students and researchers of the Spanish Civil War," acquisition into a formal collection was stalled repeatedly.
It wasn't until 2007 that chief curator at the International Center of Photography (ICP) Brian Wallis - with the aid of independent curator and filmmaker Trisha Ziff - launched a new effort to return the negatives to Cornell Capa (Robert Capa's brother and founder of the ICP). The suitcase finally arrived in New York on the 19th December that year.
Vivian Maier
From the most famous of photographers to an unknown. John Maloof acquired Vivian Maier's negatives while at a furniture and antique auction. Of the roughly 100,000 negatives in the collection, about 20-30,000 negatives were still in rolls, undeveloped from the 1960's-1970's.
It is incredibly rare to uncovered a genuinely prolific and highly-artistic body of work by an auteur of Maier's skill. Maloof is planning a book and so at this point understandably limits the amount of information he provides.
"Vivian came here from France in the early 1930's," said Maloof, "and worked in a sweat shop in New York when she was about 11 or 12. She was not Jewish but a Catholic, or as they said, an anti-Catholic. She was a Socialist, a Feminist, a movie critic, and a tell-it-like-it-is type of person. She learned English by going to theaters, which she loved. She wore a men's jacket, men's shoes and a large hat most of the time. She was constantly taking pictures, which she didn't show anyone."
Obviously, much of Maier's story is yet to be written; a book will be published by powerHouse books. Maloof, who "didn't even know what street photography was" before he delved into the box of negatives has been interviewed by Design Observer, featured by the Independent (UK) and continues to release images every couple of weeks at . Keep this on your radar.
Los Angeles Police Department Archives
In 2001, Merrick Morton, a photographer and LAPD reserve officer and Lieutenant John Thomas, adjutant to Chief of Police Bernard C. Parks and LAPD historian, pooled energies to uncover the images and stories of the LAPD archive.
"The earliest photographs in the collection date to 1925," said Morton, "The film used was large-format (4"x5") cellulose nitrate until sometime in the early forties when it was replaced with safety film. In the early sixties, the size changed to medium-format (2-1/4"x2-1/4") which was used until the mid-seventies when it was, in turn, replaced with 35mm."
Granted access to the archive by Parks, Morton and Thomas – along with then LACMA curator Tim Wride – each found themselves instantly playing custodian. Some negatives were made of combustible and decomposing cellulose nitrate; the Los Angeles Fire Department recommended that all the negatives be destroyed. The team petitioned for the preservation of the archive and succeeded. Only the unsalvagable negatives were destroyed and the rest moved into cold storage.
Morton and his wife, Robin Blackman, mounted an gallery exhibition of select images mirrored online at Fototeka. Tim Wride went on to author the book Scene of the Crime: Photographs from the LAPD Archive.
What did we miss?
Above are just a selection of stories following the fortunes of photographs from history; there are thousands more.
Which stories have me missed? Which archives, rescue missions, salvage crews and happy discoveries do you remember?
