Adams heirs skeptical about lost negatives claim

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — It’s an antique collector’s dream: buying an old box at a garage sale and discovering it contains famous lost works worth a fortune.

That’s what Rick Norsigian said happened to him. Ten years ago, the Fresno painter stumbled upon a trove of 65 old glass negatives that he says have been authenticated as the work of famed nature photographer Ansel Adams, possibly worth $200 million.

“This is absolutely beyond what I thought,” the 64-year-old said at a press conference held at a Beverly Hills art gallery on Tuesday. “I’m very lucky.”

Norsigian’s lawyer Arnold Peter said a team of experts who studied the negatives over the past six months concluded “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the photos were Mr. Adams‘ early work, and they were believed to have been destroyed in a 1937 fire at his Yosemite National Park studio.

“These photographs are really the missing link,” he said. “They really fill the void in Ansel Adams‘ early career.”

Mr. Adams is renown for his timeless black-and-white photographs of the American West, which were produced with darkroom techniques that heightened shadows and contrasts to create mood-filled landscape portraits. He died in 1984 at 82.

His photographs today are widely reproduced on calendars, posters and in coffee-table books. His prints are coveted by collectors.

Yosemite National Park fetched $722,500 for Ansel print “Clearing Winter Storm” at an auction last month in New York, a record for 20th century photography.

Mr. Norsigian, who works for the Fresno Unified School District, is already planning to capitalize on his discovery. He’s set up a website to sell prints made from 17 negatives from $45 for a poster to $7,500 for a darkroom print with a certificate of authenticity. A documentary on his quest to have the negatives authenticated is in the works, as well as a touring exhibition that will debut at Fresno State University in October.

Representatives of Mr. Adams, however, said they’re not buying Mr. Norsigian’s claims.

“It’s an unfortunate fraud,” said Bill Turnage, managing director of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust. “It’s very distressing.”

Mr. Turnage said he’s consulting lawyers about possibly suing Mr. Norsigian for using a copyrighted name for commercial purposes. He described Mr. Norsigian as on an “obsessive quest.” ”We’ve been dealing with him for a decade,” he said. “I can’t tell you how many times he’s called me.”

Mr. Adams‘ grandson, Matthew Adams, who heads the Ansel Adams Gallery in San Francisco, said he reviewed Mr. Norsigian’s authentications last fall and thinks they’re stretches. Many photographers took pictures of the same places Adams did in that era, he said.

“There is no real hard evidence,” he said. “I’m skeptical.”

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