ANSEL ADAMS PHOTO

Sixty five pieces of 6.5 x 8.5 inch glass plate negatives have finally been authenticated as the work of Ansel Adams. Their estimated value is $200 million, but the happy owner payed $45 for them.

Before to follow the course of events it’s important to say that Ansel Adams was the father of photography in America and a very enthusiastic environmentalist. His value became nationally recognized in the 1940s, but this happened a couple of years after a darkroom fire destroyed in 1937 as many as 5,000 negatives from his early portfolio. This was a permanent reason of lamentation for the art lovers which wanted to trace the evolution of his eye and the development of his talent.

However Ansel Adams was a teacher in Pasadena in the 1940s and he brought some negatives there as a teaching aid for his photography school classes. Nobody knows why he would store them in that place and never reclaim them, but somebody bought the pieces during the 1940s in a warehouse salvage sale in Los Angeles, without to have an idea about their value.

He kept them in his house for a very long time and fifty years later this unfortunate person decided to recover his money. He wrapped them in newspaper and placed the pieces in two small boxes. It’s hard to say how much time they was simple unwanted items at garage sales, but in one day a person appeared reaching out to them.

A negotiation process started from $70. If he had sold his house for that price it would have been better. After a long time the items was sold again, this time for $45. The new owner observed that several negatives are almost identical to some Ansel Adams prints, but he discovered later that most of them was never printed.

Rick Norsigian was the new owner and he spent the next 10 years trying to prove the worth of his discovery and finally he did it. They represent a missing link of Ansel Adams career, according to the experts, because the negatives were from between 1919 and the early 1930’s.

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