Monday, August 16, 2010

Image of the Day

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From an article in The New York Times by Reyhan Harmanci:
It was a dream come true, straight out of “Antiques Roadshow.” In 2000 Rick Norsigian, a painter in a school maintenance department, bought a box of photo negatives at a garage sale in Fresno, Calif., for $45. Last month, a decade later, he stood in a Beverly Hills art gallery to announce that a team of experts had concluded “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Ansel Adams had taken the pictures.

The gallery’s owner, David W. Streets, appraised the value of the 65 images, which the experts called “the lost negatives,” at $200 million, and the incident made news around the world.

But a fairy-tale ending is eluding Mr. Norsigian. A day after the announcement, Matthew Adams, a grandson of the photographer, disputed the finding, questioned the credentials of the experts and went so far as to call the whole business a “scam.”

A few days after that, an Oakland woman, Marian Walton, announced that she had a photo (shown above) that was identical to one of the negatives. It had been taken, she said, not by Adams, the famous outdoors photographer, but by an uncle of hers, Earl Brooks.
Dun-dun-dunnnn. The intrigue continues at nytimes.com.

1 comment:

glphil said...

Update Update
David Streets, Beverly Hills art dealer and raconteur,
has just announced the unearthing of a photographic collection, which he deems as the "Finest collection of photographic art ever discovered, by a previously unknown photographer".
Presently, Streets is working with experts from Sotheby's New York and London offices, said to be "the most knowledgeable in the medium of photographic images", cataloguing the collection. Streets has stated the value of the collection "in the mid eight figures". Upon completion of the catalogue, Streets will be announcing the date the auction, conducted under the auspices of Sotheby's. Streets also announced that some of the photographs will be available for presale, prior to September 30, the due date of his next Rolls Royce payment. (I guess I had to ruin it with the previous line... If only I had used my writing skills for something other than sarcasm!)