Ansel Adams would be happy if he were still alive to see how investments have paid off. Rick Norsigian purchased a box of glad negatives at a garage sale for a song. It took him 10 years but he’s finally certain experts that the pictures were taken by Ansel Adams, photographer. Now he hopes to get the return on his $ 45 investment. The Ansel Adams garage sale photos are now being appraised for more than $ 200 million.
Garage sale for Ansel Adams
Photographer Ansel Adams, who died in 1984, was renowned for his black-and-white photographs of the American West. Some of the most famous by Ansel Adams are pictures that were taken in Yosemite National Park in California. Norsigian told CNN that he bought two boxes of glass negatives for $ 45 although the sellers wanted $ 70 for them. CNN reports that Robert Moeller, art expert, thinks that “with a high degree of probability, that the images under consideration were produced by Ansel Adams”.
Ansel Adams negatives: ‘missing link’
In the photographer’s career, these photos seem to be a “missing link” reports CNN who was told by David W. Streets, art dealer. The Beverly Hills gallery had the photos shown for the first time July 27. He estimates that that Norsigian’s return on his investment could easily be worth up to $ 200 million. Art experts thought the 65 glass negatives were destroyed in a 1937 darkroom fire that consumed 5,000 plates.
Ansel Adams’ Zone System
Silver tarnishing on the Ansel Adams garage sale photographs show they were taken between 1919 and also the early 1930s, well before Ansel Adams’ Yosemite images became nationally recognized within the 1940s. Wikipedia explains the Zone System was co-developed by Adams which helps the photos get the proper exposure and contrast to them. The resulting clarity and depth of Ansel Adams’ Zone System defined the classic Ansel Adams images. Special cameras were used by Adams to create very sharp pictures.
Negatives for Ansel Adams
Many experts nevertheless aren’t too sure about accepting the Ansel Adams photos as real. The blog Croanca questions whether the curators and dealers cited in the CNN article are as qualified to judge Ansel Adams’ work as his descendants and students. Those who like Ansel Adams wonder if reproduction could be a bad thing. visualjournalism.info had somebody question whether or not anybody would be able to make the Ansel Adams photographs look good.
Further reading
CNN
cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/07/27/ansel.adams.discovery/?hpt=Sbin
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansel_Adams
