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<\/a>Untitled [large family group] by Mike Disfarmer. The UMFA has a very well-respected photography collection, due in large part to collectors\u00a0James & Debra Pearle, and the close circle of friends that have joined them in donating works to the museum.\u00a0Among these are Daniel and Melanie Mattis, whose son, Michael Mattis, began been amassing a large collection of original photographs by “penny portrait” photographer Michael Disfarmer in 2004.<\/p>\n As UMFA curator Donna Poulton tells it, Mike Disfarmer was the town recluse of Heber Springs Arkansas, the odd type of character that everyone in town liked to talk about but whom few knew; the eccentric curmudgeon who bucked social norms\u00a0and instilled fear in the hearts of youngsters. Oddly enough, he was also the local photographer. Out of a simple live-work space he built himself, he took photographers of just about everyone in the area, from the well-to-do mother showing off her children, to the dirt farmer in his best overalls. When Disfarmer died in 1958, he was unknown outside the small Ozark town. His anonymity changed in the 1970s when Disfarmer’s original glass negatives were discovered, cleaned, and published in a book \u2013 Disfarmer: The Heber Springs Portraits, 1939\u20131946<\/i>. These portraits of the full range of characters from rural America, taken in unadorned settings and frequently capturing unguarded moments, caught the attention of an art world in the full flush of minimalism and Disfarmer became a posthumous art star. His star blazed even brighter after 2004, when original prints by the photographer were\u00a0discovered and purchased by Michael Mattis. Today, Disfarmer’s portraits of young children, departing soldiers, and awkwardly arranged families are increasingly sought after; and thanks to the donations of the Pearles and Mattises, as well as Dr. Donald L. and Alice A. Lapp\u00e9, scores of them are now on exhibit at the UMFA in the museum’s newest exhibit Mike Disfarmer: Cleburne County Portraits.<\/i><\/p>\n Over the more than three decades, Disfarmer took portraits of the residents of Cleburne County, Arkansas, he never upgraded his technology, continuing to shoot with glass negatives long after the mainstream had given them up for more advanced and lightweight setups. As we see in the photographs, however, his studio was transformed over the years. Early photographs from the ’20s show traditional backdrops of romantic landscapes. Over time, these give way to plain monochrome backdrops, and in his final years\u00a0Disfarmer placed his subjects in a room almost completely white save for a simple black table and a mysterious dark line that extends from floor to ceiling. The locals that came into his studio in these years ended up looking like\u00a0Grant Wood’s farmer stuck in a Mondrian.<\/p>\n In Disfarmer’s compositions the vertical stripe frequently breaks one of the most basic rules of portrait photography, splicing the subjects in half. Its purpose \u2013 was it used for placement? “Stand in front of this line and don’t move.” Did it join two sheets of wall surfaces? \u2013 will likely remain a mystery. And Disfarmer might have liked it that way. He remained a mystery to the people he lived with for more than 50 years. His patrons were likely as drawn by the thrill of seeing the odd recluse as by any desire for a keepsake image. He turned his back on his roots, claiming at one time to have been torn from his real family by a tornado and placed with the Meyers \u2013 a rural Arkansas family whose surname means “dairy farmer” in German.\u00a0 His choice of a replacement name \u2013 Dis-farmer \u2013 is as antagonistic as it is unmelodious.<\/p>\n
Gelatin silver process, paper
Dimensions: image: h: 3 in x w: 5 in
Credit: Purchased with funds from Dr. Donald L. and Alice A. Lapp\u00e9 and Drs. Daniel and Noem\u00ed P. Mattis<\/p><\/div>Over time art museums tend to systematize and homogenize their holdings, but most of our public art collections began with the idiosyncrasies of individual collectors. This is why, for instance, the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) has a surprisingly strong collection of Egyptian artifacts \u2013\u00a0Natacha Rambova, a wealthy heiress, onetime wife of Rudolph Valentino, and great-granddaughter of a Mormon apostle, donated part of her collection to her native state of Utah (see here)<\/a>. Or why it is currently mounting an exhibition of small, timeworn images by a photographer from Arkansas.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t
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