Going full-steam-ahead into Year Two of the brouhaha over “the lost negatives of Ansel Adams,” Team Norsigian has added the University of Arizona as a defendant in its countersuit against the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust. This inclusion of the UofA in the countersuit comes as no surprise. In fall 2010 Arnold Peter, legal counsel for Rick Norsigian, forced the disclosure of a chain of email correspondence between William “Wild Bill” Turnage, Managing Trustee of the Adams Trust, and various functionaries at the Center for Creative Photography and the UofA (which houses the CCP). That correspondence makes it absolutely clear that Turnage blackmailed the CCP’s newly installed director, Katharine Martinez, into reluctantly signing an inappropriate and prejudicial public statement discrediting Norsigian’s claims regarding the glass-plate negatives he bought at a yard sale in Fresno and has attributed to Ansel Adams. […]
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At 5 p.m. CST this afternoon, bidding closed on three separate chunks of the now-dismembered Polaroid Collection. For all intents and purposes, the dispersal of this unique, irreplaceable collection will have run its course by the end of this month. The first phase of the ill-fated Collection’s distribution in parts took place last June, through […] I’ll put my dollar on 20 Exchange Place turning the Polaroid Collection into trophy lobby decor, using it to accessorize its newly gentrified location, with perhaps a small dedicated gallery on the ground floor or in the retail area. That gallery will be rentable for social events, of course; nothing tones up a corporate cocktail party or an upscale wedding reception like world-class fine art on the walls, as museums around the country have discovered. And access to any part of the collection not on display will become so restricted that we might as well kiss it goodbye. (You read it here first.) […] John R. Stoebner, the court-appointed Chapter 7 Trustee in the PBE Corporation bankruptcy proceeding that involves the Polaroid Collection, anounced on January 3, 2010 that he has found buyers for most of the collection. This opens the way for a poential auction for the several remaining components of the Polaroid Collection, with competitive bids due no later that 5 p.m. CST on January 20, 2011 — 10 days hence. That leaves a very brief window of opportunity for any institution or other potential purchaser to submit an offer. […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014 |
Polaroid Collection: Update 23
I find myself wondering if the malevolent ghost of J. P. Morgan himself, still furious with Edward Steichen for making that iconic 1903 portrait, lurked around JPMorgan Chase & Co. headquarters while this deal went down in order to exact revenge on the entire medium through which his murderous inner child had been evoked for all to see. […]