Cowflop from the Adams Herd (4)

Destined, I predict, for the dustbin of history, William “Wild Bill” Turnage, Managing Trustee of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust, has publicly gone into full CYA mode.

Understandably, Turnage wants to reverse the now-widespread perception of himself as a vindictive thug, consequent to the scandalous disclosure of his despicable manipulation of Katharine Martinez, director of the Center for Creative Photography, and his corruption of the administration of the University of Arizona-Tucson, whose library system houses and governs the CCP. His problem? He is who he is ― and, thanks to the astuteness and persistence of Rick Norsigian’s attorney, Arnold Peter, the proof of his malevolent bullying has become a matter of permanent public record.

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Before I proceed, a clarification of the nature and purpose of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust. Created in 1976, some eight years before the photographer’s death, this trust does not exist to benefit the field of photography, nor to subsidize the activities of non-profit conservation and ecology organizations. Its function is to protect Adams’s trademarked name and copyrighted images and writings, and to engage in licensing usage rights thereto, mostly for profit.

Ansel Adams's signature

The primary beneficiaries of this trust are Anne Adams Helms and Michael Adams, the two children of Ansel and Virginia Adams. (Click here for the court documents so indicating.) Its main financial goal, not to put too fine a point on it, is to line the pockets of Adams’s offspring.

Ten percent of its publishing royalties are earmarked for the CCP in Tucson, where Adams’s archives reside, but that’s hardly selfless, since the CCP stores, insures, conserves, and researches those Adams holdings, developing exhibitions and publications therefrom that help to promote the Adams name and brand, which benefits the Trust and its beneficiaries in turn. In short, the Adams Trust has no built-in philanthropic aspect, just profit and enlightened self-interest.

Adams’s scions are perfectly nice people, I’m quite sure. The Adams Trust is a commonplace type of legal entity under the civil codes; nothing inappropriate or suspicious about it. But neither this Trust nor its beneficiaries have contributed notably to the field of photography, save to whatever extent they’ve shared their inherited wealth via patronage.

Turnage’s main contribution to the field has consisted of making Ansel Adams rich during his later years and then, via this Trust, helping him pass that along posthumously to his kids ― projects for which he’s handsomely paid. So his actions vis-a-vis the University of Arizona and the CCP do not constitute efforts on behalf of anything beyond protecting the financial interests of the Adams children and himself. He neither represents nor speaks for the photography community or the concerns of photographers generally, his intimations otherwise notwithstanding.

University of Arizona President Emeritus John P. Schaefer

As long as I’ve entered clarification mode, here’s another. The Adams Trust’s three directors also include John P. Schaefer, former president of the UofA-Tucson and co-founder, with Adams, of the Center for Creative Photography there. Schaefer also sits on the CCP’s Board of Fellows, which contributes (in ways not exactly clear) to the CCP’s governance. This strikes me as a conflict of interest, especially since ― as this dramatic episode has made painfully clear ― the best interests of the Adams Trust and the best interests of the CCP/UofA do not necessarily coincide.

By amazing coincidence, on that same CCP Board of Fellows also sits . . . Michael Adams, Ansel’s sons, one of the two beneficiaries of the Adams Trust. All very chummy-chummy, cozy, and even incestuous (not that there’s anything wrong with that). And, once again, an apparent conflict of interest.

From the CCP's 2008 Annual Report.

So when Turnage communicates with the CCP and the administration of the University of Arizona-Tucson, he does so with the implicit endorsement of the other two members of the Adams Trust plus two members of the CCP’s Board of Fellows. Keep this in mind as you read Turnage’s public and private statements below, and watch him try fruitlessly to establish plausible deniability of his gross malfeasance.

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Clearly frantic to get out of the very corner into which he painted himself while somehow erasing his footsteps, Turnage now resorts to lame efforts at spin control in a doomed attempt to rewrite history. You’ll find this throughout the interview he granted to David Walker of PDN, “Slander Suit Over Garage Sale Negatives Reveals Rift Inside Ansel Adams Camp,” published on January 26, 2011.

Walker, cagily, does little more than give Turnage enough rope; Turnage leaves himself twisting slowly in the wind. His own words condemn him irrevocably, and his pathetic attempts to avoid taking responsibility for his own actions reveal him as the worst sort of weasel.

Let me list some of Turnage’s baldfaced (and baldheaded) falsehoods, starting with those in the infamous emails he sent to Martinez of the CCP and others at the University of Arizona. For a PDF with some of these emails, filed with the court as evidence in Team Norsigian’s countersuit, click here. You’ll note that the aforementioned John Schaefer and Michael Adams are in the loop on these.

Also along for the ride in this exchange, as senders and/or recipients: Carla J. Stoffle, Dean of University Libraries and the Center for Creative Photography; Ken R. Dildine, Vice President, Fiduciary Compliance and Gift Transactions, UofA; Stephen J. MacCarthy, Vice President of External Relations, UofA; Rebecca (Becky) Senf, Norton Family Assistant Curator of Photography, CCP; Denise Gose, Rights and Reproductions Manager, CCP; Trinity Parker, Registrar, CCP; Janet Livingstone, Administrative Assistant, CCP; and David Knaus, who, with Schaefer, co-chairs the CCP Board of Fellows. (I can’t help wondering if the dynamic of belligerent, blustering, abusive males intimidating a group of females plays any role in this situation. Is that sexist of me?)

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William Turnage, managing trustee, Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust

In her July 27 email to Schaefer and Dildine (cc’d to Stoffle), Martinez recounts, “FYI, I was able to speak with Bill Turnage (Ansel Adams Trust). He said it was ‘essential’ for CCP staff to talk with the press to say that ‘lost’ negatives are not Adams negatives. Bill said that it was essential in order to defend the ‘integrity and reputation’ of the Center.”

What a whopper. The truth is just the opposite. Team Norsigian’s claim of authenticity for the Norsigian negatives in no way jeopardized the Center’s “integrity and reputation.” But Turnage’s insistence that the CCP enter this fray on the side of the Adams Trust has had exactly that effect.

Katharine Martinez, incoming CCP Director.

The blowback from Turnage’s meddling has not only tarnished the reputations of Martinez, Stoffle, and Schaefer, it reflects badly on both the CCP and the UofA and puts them in harm’s way, said institutions now named as conspirators in Team Norsigian’s countersuit as a direct consequence of Turnage’s leaning on them. Moreover, Turnage’s strongarm tactics, coupled with his highly unprofessional lack of discretion and general ineptitude, not only reveal his own ugliness but also affect perception of the Adams Trust and his fellow trustees (Schaefer, as noted, and Los Angeles attorney David H. Vena).

All of which definitely makes the Trust’s beneficiaries, the Adams kids, look bad. And, of course, it’s left the Trust open to a whopping lawsuit in California, possibly another in Arizona, the costs of which will come out of the profits that would otherwise accrue to the two trust-fund babies. Can’t make them too happy with their Trust’s Managing Director. Yes, things don’t look rosy for “Wild Bill” Turnage right now; he’s finding that he can run but not hide, while the price of his rampage gets steeper by the minute.

(To be continued.)

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As this story evolves, I note with interest that neither the Tucson Daily Citizen nor the Arizona Daily Star consider it the least bit newsworthy, to judge by their failure to cover any aspect of it. Or else they’re in the pocket of the University, not at all unlikely in what’s in large part a college town.

The Uof A’s student newspaper, the Arizona Daily Wildcat, which bills itself as “An independent news organization serving the University of Arizona since 1899,” hasn’t touched it either. Instead, they run puff pieces like this vapid interview with John P. Schaefer by Jazmine Woodberry, “John Shaefer remembers Ansel Adams: Photography center co-founder reflects on old friend, tenure as UA president.”

This appeared on January 19, 2011, at a moment when Schaefer, Stoffle, Martinez, the CCP, and the UofA found themselves embroiled in a major lawsuit and a newsworthy scandal that threatens the reputations of them all. If Woodberry’s lobbing of softballs represents the best that the University of Arizona School of Journalism can produce, someone should review their accreditation.

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For an index of links to all previous posts related to this story, click here.