According to a press release dated last Friday, on December 16, 2010, Richard “Rick” Norsigian and PRS Media Partners “publicly announced the filing of a counterclaim against the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust. The primary allegations of the four-count suit involve claims for slander and civil conspiracy.” I’ve indicated previously that I fully expect the Adams Trust to prevail in its trademark-violation suit against Norsigian and PRS Media Partners. Yet it’s no contradiction to say that it wouldn’t surprise me if the letter consortium prevailed in its countersuit. […]
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Sometime between 2000 and now the Center for Creative Photography’s policy changed dramatically, though without much fanfare — without any public announcement at all, in fact, unless I missed something. Apparently the CCP has in fact actively gotten into the Ansel Adams authentication business. This new service goes unmentioned in the Center’s mission statement, its online FAQs, or anywhere else at its website. Yet it’s now a “normal activity” at the Center — and, I gather, provided to one and all as a courtesy. When did this significant change comes about, and who’s responsible for it? […] In my 42 years as a critic, historian, and cultural journalist concentrating on photography, I’ve felt it necessary only twice to call publicly for the resignation of major functionaries in this field: John Szarkowski of the Museum of Modern Art (1978) and William Turnage of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust. Not the least of the intriguing connections here is the substantial amount of money that flowed from the latter to the former. […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014 |
Adams Authentication and the CCP (3)
You can see how this matter begins to bear on Team Norsigian’s struggle to authenticate the negatives it claims were made by Ansel Adams. Norsigian and his representatives have made numerous efforts to involve the CCP in the authentication of those negatives. In light of the revelation that the CCP does in fact “routinely” authenticate Adams material via a set of established protocols, the CCP’s responses to Team Norsigian’s requests can only be termed suspicious — inappropriate and, in several cases, inconsistent with its own established policies and procedures. […]