ARTHURWG@aol.com
Date: 01/08/03-03:07:56 PM Z
I have never heard anyone claim that Disfarmer and/or his photographs were a
hoax. He was well-known in Heber Springs, Ark., his work is well documented,
and he is still talked about in that town.
Disfarmer's real name was Mike Myers, which he said meant "Farmer" in
German . . So when he had his so-called "mid-life crisis," left his family
and opened his portrait studio, he changed his name to "Disfarmer," which he
said meant "not a farmer."
In fact his negatives were glass, and virtually all of his pictures were
contact printed. At first he used 5x7 plates, but later switched to 3 1/4 x 5
1/2. He left 4700 negatives, but at least 1200 of those were ruined by
improper storage in the period between his death in 1959 and their
"discovery" in the early 1970s.
I believe Disfarmer was a true "Outsider-Artist-Photographer." He
became a portrait photographer out of the blue, not in New York or Paris but
in a small town with little or no art tradition. And as we all know, not all
portrait photographers are "Artists." That such brilliant and utterly
profound photographs could emerge from Heber Springs, Ak., pop. 3800, is
the kind of miracle that real "art," and certainly outsider-art, requires.
I note also that no less a master than Richard Avadon called Disfarmer's
work one of the most significant bodies of portraiture in the history of
photography.
There are two Disfarmer books: "Disfarmer: The Heber Springs Portraits,
1939-1946, " by Julia Scully, 1976, and "Disfarmer," published by Twin Palms
a few years ago.
Arthur
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