Published by Neuberger Museum of Art. Edited with text by Chelsea Spengemann. Text by Gil Blank, Tanya Sheehan.
Becoming Disfarmer uses a compelling sequence of over 100 images to tell the story of Mike Disfarmer's vernacular portraiture and its transformation into art. This monograph features his vintage prints along with a selection of enlargements made from his negatives in the 1970s, through which his work first became known. Disfarmer's postcard-size vintage photographs are reproduced in full color to accurately convey their varied surfaces, and most of the examples are shown in the condition in which they were found, rather than as restored images. This publication also reproduces the backs of selected vintage photographs and provides transcriptions of all handwritten notes that appear on the objects. In addition, the monograph contains high-quality reproductions of newspaper pages in which Disfarmer's images appeared, locally produced historical journals that include images by other photographers who worked at the same time and in the same region as Disfarmer and album pages like those for which Disfarmer's photographs were originally made. These fascinating additions to the scholarship were collected as primary research by the editor over a three-year period and provide historical context for Disfarmer's portraits. Complete with three scholarly essays, a bibliography and exhibition history, this monograph qualifies as the most comprehensive Disfarmer publication to date. Mike Disfarmer (1884–1959) was born Michael Meyer in Indiana, and began working as a photographer in Heber Springs, Arkansas in 1914. In addition to selling portraits made in his studio, he processed film, sold postcards and worked for hire. He was considered a mythical figure in his own lifetime for changing his surname to Disfarmer in 1939 and claiming to have originated from a tornado. His portraits--commonly considered as honest depictions of a rural population made by an eccentric outsider--have been compared with the work of masters such as August Sander and Irving Penn.
PUBLISHER Neuberger Museum of Art
BOOK FORMAT Hardcover, 9 x 12 in. / 192 pgs / 192 color.
PUBLISHING STATUS Pub Date 12/31/2014 Out of print
DISTRIBUTION D.A.P. Exclusive Catalog: FALL 2014 p. 32
PRODUCT DETAILS ISBN 9780979562983TRADE List Price: $60.00 CAD $70.00
Published by Twin Palms Publishers. Text by Julia Scully.
In Heber Springs, Arkansas, a reclusive photographer named Mike Meyer (1884–1959), known simply as “Disfarmer,” created an uncanny record of American rural life during the 1930s and 1940s. Working out of his modest studio, Disfarmer created portraits which are direct and unpretentious. Disfarmer‘s portraits of cotton farmers, tradesmen, soldiers home on leave and the extended families that made up this rural community, reveal a common bond that is rapidly disappearing in the United States. They are bold portraits, and sometimes confrontational, yet they show his sitter‘s humble grace and small-town charm. Handed down through generations and found today in the family albums of this community, Disfarmer's portraits are emblematic of the post-Depression era. These photographs, many unpublished or rarely seen, underscore his uniquely American vision of place. For this monograph of Disfarmer‘s work, Twin Palms founder Jack Woody returned to the surviving glass-plate negatives, choosing 180 for this book. A set of contact prints were made from the glass plates, and the book was printed on a sheet-fed gravure press in Kyoto. Gravure gives the images a richness and depth that evokes their time and place.
Disfarmer