A Reconsideration, A Retraction, and An Apology
Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson
In my last post I sketched at length my long-term professional relationship with the Center for Creative Photography and described my first-hand experience there during a 1996-97 residency. I did so in order to establish the basis on which I’d come to an assumption that has underpinned a number of my previous statements and comments in this series of posts. That assumption, in brief: The CCP was never in the business of providing anything resembling authentication services in relation to the work of Ansel Adams or any of the other photographers or other figures whose primary materials reside in its archives.
I spent 13 years (1987-2000) in regular correspondence with CCP director James Enyeart and his successor, Terence Pitts, plus members of their staff, concerning the Center’s acquisition of my own archive. I visited the CCP several times over that stretch of time, and, during a three-month residency 1996-97, spent hours there daily working on assorted projects, sometimes in the office they assigned to me but frequently in the archives and the Research Center, run by the estimable Amy Rule.
Even before that residency began, my growing understanding of the Center’s role and functions in our field had led me to produce an essay about its history and then-current situation. That piece appeared, in slightly varied form, in the New York Observer, Photo Metro, and Camera & Darkroom Photography, 199-95. For it I interviewed all three of the CCP’s line of directors, who spoke with me candidly and at length about the institution’s birth, growth, and activities over the years.
Terence Pitts
By that time Pitts had taken over the directorship, and, as I discovered when I arrived to start my residency in December ’96, he ran a very open administration. I frequently found myself invited to sit in on and even contribute to staff meetings. I watched the preparation for and mounting of shows drawn from the Center’s collection in the CCP’s galleries, as well as the intake of new materials for the archives. I also shared lunches and coffee breaks and dinners with Terry and the staffers, which made me privy to a lot of in-house, backstage information about the running of the place. As a result, I came to know a good bit about the policies, procedures, and day-to-day operations of the CCP.
When working in the Research Center I had ample opportunity to eyeball whatever projects the CCP staff pursued there, as well as the endeavors of other scholars and researchers who came to use the Research Center’s resources. By the same token, they could look over my shoulder as I followed my nose through those holdings. So I had three months of direct exposure to the diverse usages to which visiting researchers and the CCP’s staff put the materials in their charge — including, of course, the extensive Ansel Adams archive that had seeded the CCP’s creation.
(I should explain that the Research Center was available, by appointment only, to qualified researchers, who could use it to access all but the legally restricted materials in the CCP collection. There was also a ground-level Print Study Room, open to the general public with no appointment necessary, where one or more staffers were available to show the CCP’s exhibition-quality prints from opening time till closing time, weekdays plus Saturday afternoons.)
At that time Harold Jones, founding director of the CCP, who’d preceded Enyeart in that role, chaired and taught in the University of Arizona-Tucson’s photography program, a few hundred steps away from the CCP’s front door across a walkway. We hadn’t seen much of each other since he left New York for Tucson, so Harold and I made sure to spend some time together; inevitably, part of our dialogue concerned the early days of the CCP and the principles on which it had been created.
As a result of this prolonged immersion in the CCP’s inner workings, I felt reasonably secure in stating recently that authentication (or, as a logical corollary, the invalidating of) materials attributed to Ansel Adams or any other figure whose visual works or papers the CCP held did not fall within the CCP’s purview. In our formal and informal discussions, on and off the record, none of the three directors of the CCP through 2000 — Jones, Enyeart, and Pitts — had specified authentication of any outside materials as one of the Center’s services offered during their tenures.
Ansel Adams's signature
Moreover, none of the former and current staffers with whom I’ve spoken up through the present, whether on or off the record, had mentioned any occasion on which such an activity took place there. In three consecutive months of residency at the CCP, including days each week spent in the CCP’s Research Center (where authentication would have to take place), I neither observed any such activity firsthand nor heard of it taking place in my absence. There was (still is) nothing about this in any of the descriptive literature about the Center and its range of services. And no scholar with whom I’ve been in contact has ever talked or written about the Center providing such a service.
I’ve gone to the trouble of laying this out in detail to indicate just why — based on my past experience — I felt confident in admonishing Team Norsigian on several occasions that their recurrent demand for CCP authentication of the Norsigian Collection negatives was inappropriate, because that simply wasn’t what the CCP did. They didn’t authenticate anything, I wrote; you went there with your own unvalidated materials and your own experts, and used the Center’s holdings to either authenticate or invalidate whatever you had. So far as I knew, Center policy circa 2000 in this regard still held true a decade later.
Turns out that was then, this is now. And sometime between then and now Center 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. According to a report by Rebecca Rillos, “Ansel Adams authenticated: Center for Creative Photography verifies claims of original works,” published in the Arizona Daily Wildcat on November 23, 2010,
“The [University of Arizona’s] Center for Creative Photography plays an increasingly larger role in questioning the authenticity of emerging photographs claimed to be Ansel Adams originals. . . . [P]eople come to the center almost monthly for authentication consults regarding possible Adams photographs. ‘It is a normal activity for the center for someone to bring us a print they think might be by Adams and ask us to help them authenticate it,’ [Rebecca Senf, acting senior curator for the CCP] said.”
Rillos’s story goes on to detail the authentication process provided by the Center:
“The center uses an initial three-step method to determine a photograph’s authenticity. First, the staff checks to see if an identical print exists in their collection. If one does they can certify the photograph is Adams’ work. If the center cannot find a match, then they move to step two and check the print against the 40,000 negatives in the archive. If they cannot locate the photograph then, they look at the published sources to see if the print matches against something published by Adams.
“‘Once we’ve moved beyond those three and we haven’t been able to find an exact match, then we are never going to be able to say without a doubt that something is or is not by Ansel Adams,’ Senf said.”
“In these cases, determining the validity of a photograph moves into much grayer territory, she said. The center utilizes other methods of verifying the work in question, such as crossing the paper type, handwriting, and possible time frame of when the photograph was taken against the styles and history of Adams. To be able to conduct these processes, Senf said, takes years of experience and connoisseurship.”
This new service goes unmentioned in the Center’s mission statement, its online FAQs, or anywhere else at its website. Yet the authentication of Ansel Adams material is now a “normal activity” at the Center for Creative Photography — and, I gather, provided to one and all as a courtesy, since Rillos mentions no fee. When did this significant change comes about, and who’s responsible for it?
Collector Rick Norsigian. Image courtesy of Rick Norsigian.
In any case, it appears I need to retract and revise my prior statements (such as this one) asserting that the CCP doesn’t authenticate Ansel Adams material. The CCP I knew firsthand, up through 2000, didn’t do this. Somewhere along the line that changed, and now it provides “authentication consults” as a “normal activity.” Which raises a bunch of questions, not least about the CCP’s treatment of Rick Norsigian and his cohorts over the past decade. If the Center’s gotten itself into the Adams authentication biz, it was wrong of me to chastise Norsigian and his attorney, Arnold Peter, for demanding that the Center help them verify (or invalidate) Norsigian’s trove of glass-plate negatives as works by Adams. I extend my heartfelt apologies.
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For an index of links to all previous posts related to this story, click here.
??!!So you just meant to say that you were not previously aware of the change in policies at CCP and made allegations to this effect and now you know of it. Hey the world never ceases to astonish me… but sometimes it could take shorter ways.
All the best for the year to come.
Bruno
PS: What kind of coffee did they drink there at the time, Folger’s? Coming in a big can with some mountains in the background?
Mr. Coleman, I really can’t tell if your post is elegant satire, or an actual swan-dive on to your journalistic sword. I sincerely hope the former, because the latter is completely unnecessary. May I note a few things before you extend retractions and heartfelt apologies to the undeserving.
OK, things have “apparently” changed at CCP over the last decade. Or, have they changed just since August of this year? How convenient for the Adams Trust, that the Arizona Daily Wildcat came out with that story when they did (November 23, 2010.) The Wildcat has barely touched CCP since the inception of their web-edition and searchable archive, other than easy-reading show reviews and naming CCP as the Number One “inexpensive date spot” on the University of Arizona campus (7/29/09.) Oh, and saying in February 2009 that the University was considering terminating the University’s share of CCP’s funding as part of their budget-cutting program. Nothing at all that I can see in the Daily Wildcat comes close to having anything to do with the political or operational workings within CCP. So, why now, at this time, this “authentication” article? Strange “news fodder” for the Uof A’s “independent” student-run newspaper.
The date-line of Nov. 23 is also interesting. Lots of things happened with the “Team Norsigian” saga in November: your work, the court date, the wide publication of articles (including in the New York Times) questioning the Team Norsigian claim and presenting serious challenges to it, and the ‘fertilizer that hit the ventilator’ courtesy of Bill Turnage’s emails to U of A and CCP. Why would someone in the position of Rebecca Senf choose this time, of all times, to climb aboard a ship of fools that don’t know how to keep their mouths shut, by granting a quotable interview and saying such CCP-damning things to a student reporter? I dunno. Baffles me.
I’m smelling another dead cat, ready and ripening in the Arizona sun, to get thrown into the well soon. Who’ll throw it in? Same cat-chucker as last time? (Reference to my comment to Coleman’s “Open Letter to the Adams Trust” on this Blog.) I dunno. But I smell it coming.
And THEN, so what if CCP has suddenly gone into the authentication business? That should have made Team Norsigian’s job SO much easier! CCP would provide the experts, for FREE! Team N would have saved a fortune by not having to hire their own. All they had to do was go down to CCP, with the negatives, and have CCP’s experts apply their “initial three-step method.” Has Team Norsigian done that?
NO.
Why not? I dunno. Baffles me.
So why the h-e-double-toothpicks, as Radar O’Reilly would say, are you, Mr. Coleman, retracting from your writing about CCP and apologizing to Team Norsigian? Baffles me. Unless…
I have taken the bait of an elegant satire and headed for the bottom.
Sincerely,
The 3 step process as described in the above referenced article (“Ansel Adams authenticated: Center for Creative Photography verifies claims of original works”)is about IDENTIFYING prints not authenticating them. They say that beyond this, more intense forensic testing is required but have not given even one example of how and when this was done on a specific print. As a matter of fact, there is not one referenced Adams authentication in the article, in complete contradiction to the promise teased in the title. Seems like a quick fluff piece reaction to recent criticism to me. (well of course people come to them with inquiries!)I don’t think self-flagellation is in order, Mr. Coleman.”
No satire intended, I swear. Rise from the depths and take a deep breath.
I’m retracting repeated assertions I’ve made in this series of posts that the CCP isn’t in the authentication biz. That used to be true; clearly it no longer is. I assumed this hadn’t changed, and didn’t check to verify that. My sense of journalistic responsibility requires me to correct that set of errors.
I’ve apologized to Team Norsigian because they’ve complained regularly about getting rebuffed by the CCP, and I’ve dismissed that complaint as ill-founded, on the grounds that they’ve asked the CCP to do something that’s not appropriate. Apparently the Center has decided that it is in fact appropriate — just not for Team Norsigian. So I’m apologizing for making light of a situation in which, it now seems to me, Team Norsigian has been subjected to reprehensible discriminatory behavior by the CCP. (I’ll have more to say on that score in an upcoming post.)
As for the timing of this article’s publication, it certainly doesn’t benefit the CCP to have these policies, practices, and protocols revealed at this moment. The advantage is entirely to Team Norsigian. Why Senf gave this interview at this juncture, for a story that the CCP itself surely initiated, mystifies me as much as it does you.
“I’ve apologized to Team Norsigian because they’ve complained regularly about getting rebuffed by the CCP, and I’ve dismissed that complaint as ill-founded, on the grounds that they’ve asked the CCP to do something that’s not appropriate. Apparently the Center has decided that it is in fact appropriate — just not for Team Norsigian.”
Sorry, who on Team Norsigian drove that few hundred miles to Tucson and asked at the inquiry desk? How exactly, were they rebuffed? Did the CCP confirm that they would NOT help authenticate the negs (other than implied in the their statement of Aug. 27 (?))?
The CCP doen’t advertise this *”service”; you had no way of knowing. What are you apologizing about?!?
*You might be disappointed at the level of service they are willing to provide before they defer to hiring experts. Of course they will not turn away someone who thinks they have an Ansel or Strand or whomever, print. They will probably eye-ball it and attempt to identify it if they have someone on staff available, but I wouldn’t expect a full-featured forensic foray! A phone call to the right person should quickly establish their level of commitment to real forensic research for random drop-ins. I think you may need to retract your retraction!
Thank you, I’ve risen from the depths and I did inhale, deeply. (Then I got the munchies and had to head for the fridge.)
Question: Did CCP “rebuff” Team N? I thought that any rebuffment was due to Team N’s insistence that CCP send Adams material To Them, not to prevent Team N from visiting CCP’s research facilities with the negatives.
Now, with Team N’s ‘outing’ of the Turnage coercion of CCP into issuing a prejudgment, can’t Katharine Martinez “invite” Team N to ‘come on down’ and let CCP’s experts apply their “initial three-step method”? (Objection, calls for speculation on the part of the witness. Sustained.) Can’t hurt, and it might mend a lot of pot-holes, publicity-wise.
Seems we have two distinct stories now. Team Norsigian’s unwillingness to avail themselves of resources that could prove their claim (or not), and the questionable dynamics of the relationship between the U of A, the CCP, and the Adams Publishing Rights Trust.
Carry on!
(Nice to be above water again, but I still stand by my earlier comment.)
Rick Norsigian himself, initially, and then Team Norsigian, contacted the CCP to pursue authentication. Nothing I’ve seen indicates that they were ever told that if they brought their materials in the Center would subject them to this “normal” three-step process, then additional steps if necessary, etc.
Withholding such information from Norsigian & Co. while delivering those same services to others on a monthly basis strikes me as a “rebuff,” since surely some of the others who have benefitted from those free procedures called, wrote, or emailed to inquire about the availability of assistance before showing up at the CCP’s front door, and received details on how to proceed.
Moreover, the CCP’s delegate, “art expert” Robert C. Moeller, did show up there, twice — though not with the actual materials, I gather from the report. Why was he not informed that if he brought the original materials in the Center would apply their standardized protocols to them? That strikes me as another form of rebuff.
Finally, Katharine Martinez’s announcement — prior to anyone at the CCP ever laying eyes on any of the materials — that the Center discredited the Norsigian claim and supported the Adams Trust was hardly calculated to make anyone connected to Norsigian’s materials feel welcome there or expect fair treatment. Surely we can agree that this represented a public, official hauling in of the Welcome mat.
Do I think Team Norsigian should have made an appointment and showed up anyway, years ago? Of course. They still should, I believe — with a film crew in tow, to document the CCP’s application of its “normal” procedures to those materials. Have they been lax in not doing so? Yes. That doesn’t justify the discriminatory ways in which the CCP has treated them.