[pure-silver] Re: Experts: Ansel Adams photos found at garage sale worth $200 million
- From: "bonner" <bguil@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2010 08:21:25 -0400
Regarding the plates, there is probably no greater expert on AA than Alan
Ross, his prior assistant who continues to print his negatives for the AA
foundation. He has reviewed the images and come to the following conclusion.
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Interestingly enough, the New York Times has not seen fit to provide
coverage of this claim as yet.
The images in the Norsigian collection do seem to be the work of a competent
photographer working in Yosemite, San Francisco and Carmel. In a format
used by AA in the late 20's. The camera locations are similar to known
Adams favorites - but then, most of those were primary tourist viewpoints
offering an obvious place to plant a camera.
Some of the images are of yachting scenes on San Francisco Bay. Nothing of
any similarity in subject or format exists in the Adams Archive. LIkewise
some utterly bland images of a Spanish-style mission.
A major claim in the voice for authenticity is that one image - I believe of
the Jeffrey Pine on Sentinel Dome - shows some same/similar cloud formations
as exist in a known Adams image. Anyone who knew Ansel also knows that he
very often had fellow photographers at his side - either by invitation or
coincidence - when he was out photographing. The clouds could easily have
been recorded by a different camera a few feet away.
The plates seem to show signs of fire damage. Yes, Ansel's Yosemite
darkroom caught fire in 1938 and a number of prized negatives were lost.
For me, this is the weak-link/downfall of the authenticity claimants. Ansel
was working with a 6.5x8.5 plate camera when he did Monolith in 1927. The
fire was in 1938. A good number of negatives made prior to the fire had
been printed many times - Pine Branches in Snow comes to mind, for one
example. As well as I know Ansel's work, and as far as I have otherwise
heard, not ONE authenticated AA print from ANY of the Norsigian plates is
known. If it was a good image - and some of these are - Ansel couldn't have
NOT resisted making more than one print of each - and even then SOME would
have survived to exist in Ansel's own archive or in the collections of
photgapehr and Sierra Club friends.
They are some nice images, but I cannot believe they are the work of Ansel
Adams.
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Perhaps the images have some value, but very unlikely to be AA.
BG
From: pure-silver-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:pure-silver-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Peter Badcock
Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2010 7:04 AM
To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [pure-silver] Re: Experts: Ansel Adams photos found at garage sale
worth $200 million
On 28 July 2010 15:35, Don Sweet <don@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
A good answer to this question must also deal with the possibility that they
aren't by Adams.
The more I read the lawyer's statement as reported in the CNN article the
less confident I became. It sounds like a closing address to a jury:
Experts, including a former FBI agent and a U.S. attorney, "came to the
conclusion that, based on the evidence which was overwhelming, that
no reasonable person would have
any doubt that these, in fact, were the long-lost images of Ansel
Adams," Arnold said
So, if all the "reasonable" people are later shown to be wrong, and some
future buyer is looking at a loss of $200m, who should compensate whom?
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