It's been reported in the press that a Californian antique buff, Rick Norsigian, found some negatives in a stack of ageing manilaenvelopes at a garage sale in Fresno, California 10 years ago. He claims to have paid less than $70 for the negatives from a man who bought them from a salvage warehouse in Los Angeles, California in the 1940s. They are now worth a mere $200 million (£128m).
This is because they are not just any negatives - a team ofexperts concluded that the 65 negatives were the early work of Adams, most likely taken between 1919 and the early 1930s and rescued from a fire in 1937. The photographer declared himself heartbroken at the fire, which destroyed an estimated one-third of his work.
However, the photographer’s family rejected the claim and insisted that thephotographs were fakes. Matthew Adams, the photographer’s grandson, said: "There is no real hard evidence. I'm sceptical."
Bill Turnage, managing director of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust, said: "It's an unfortunate fraud. It's very distressing."
Even though, it might sound like an episode of Dallas, I'm still off to the car boot sale .....
Photo: Rick Norsigian holds up a photograph made from a glass negative shot by the late photographer Ansel Adams (Copyright: AP)
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