From: Bob and Carla (bb333@earthlink.net)
Date: 01/08/03-04:39:17 PM Z
I want to note that the Twin Palms monograph is exquisitely printed in
sheetfed photogravure, and one of the really beautiful photography
books made. This is materially sophisticated and noble craftmanship,
and a jewell in my library. I really prize this photogravure over 4
color process lithography and/or dutone-tritone lithography. Sandy, is
this what carbon prints are like?
"Wood and leather wear noble scars..." Saul Bellows
Robert
ARTHURWG@aol.com wrote:
>
> 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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