Disfarmer, Mike - original DISFARMER photographs rare!
- Hardcover: 240 pages
- Publisher: Steidl; 01 edition (27 Mar. 2006)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 3865211895
- ISBN-13: 978-3865211897
- Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 3 x 25.4 cm
- NEW/UNOPENED!
About the book:
Last year, as The New York Times has reported, a young couple from Heber Springs, Arkansas offered a collector 50 family photographs, unassuming black-and-white studio portraits dating from the mid-twentieth century. That quiet sale, which raised the possibility that there were other vintage prints of Mike Disfarmer's work in area family albums, set off a competitive buying frenzy that had collectors going door to door through rural Arkansas, spending more than a million dollars on several thousand prints. Disfarmer's work had originally been discovered in crates of glass-plate negatives, found by the speculator who purchased his estate. It was brought to light decades later in a series of books and exhibitions that set off consistent, continuing critical acclaim, but known only in posthumous reprints. Original Disfarmer Photographs is the first publication to present these vintage prints, made by Disfarmer's own hand at the time the pictures were taken--at once family mementos and the original work of one of America's greatest portraitists. Disfarmer spent half a century making studio portraits at pennies a picture to satisfy his rural clients, and creating a style of portraiture all his own. As one subject describes its genesis, "There wasn't much of a greeting when you walked in, I'll tell you that. Instead of telling you to smile, he just took the picture. No cheese or anything."
This book shows why portrait photography can and should be viewed as art. Mike Disfarmer is a legend of all times in American Photography and the fantastic portraits chosen by Steven Kashner shows why. Mike Meyer aka Mike Disfarmer who was seen by his time as an odd figure and a photographer in a small town i Arkansas but is now because of books like this and many excibitions through out the world as one Americas greatest portraits ever. For this I thank all the guys like Steven Kashnber who found the photos and worked for making the guy famous from 1976 until now, He got famous nearly twenty years after his death in 1959.. The photos shows America in change during a spectaclur time the the mid 20th century. A time which changed America for ever.
This book is about that a picture says more than a million words and the art of portrait photography which something I personaly have worked with for almost 2 years in a museum scanning glass negatives and digitilizing them. The rating 5 says it all the book is great and gives the best of Mike Disfarmer the legend from outside Little Rock, Arkansas USA. For this I thank Steven Kashner.