BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — A trove of old glass negatives bought at a garage sale for $45 has been authenticated as the lost work of Ansel Adams and is worth at least $200 million, an attorney for the owner said Tuesday. The iconic photographer’s representatives dismissed the claim as a fraud and said they’re worthless.
Arnold Peter, who represents Fresno painter and construction worker Rick Norsigian, said a team of experts who studied the 65 negatives over the past six months concluded “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the photos were Adams’ early work, believed to have been destroyed in a 1937 fire at his Yosemite National Park studio.
Norsigian, who works for the Fresno Unified School District, is already planning to capitalize on his discovery. He’s set up a website to sell prints made from 17 negatives at prices ranging from $45 for a poster to $7,500 for a darkroom print with a certificate of authenticity.
Representatives of Adams, however, said they’re not buying Norsigian’s claims.
“It’s an unfortunate fraud,” said Bill Turnage, managing director of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust. Turnage said he’s consulting lawyers about suing Norsigian for using a copyrighted name for commercial purposes. He described Norsigian as on an “obsessive quest.”
“We’ve been dealing with him for a decade,” he said. “I can’t tell you how many times he’s called me.”
