In a confidential out-of-court settlement this past March, William “Wild Bill” Turnage of the Adams Trust pledged to stop calling Team Norsigian names while Team Norsigian promised to stop using Ansel Adams’s name to validate the anonymous negatives Rick Norsigian bought at a yard sale. Turnage has, at least publicly, kept his part of the bargain. Whether Team Norsigian has done the same I can’t say for sure. […]
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The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust, PRS Media Partners, LLC and Rick Norsigian appear to have decided to bury the hatchets ― or at least to have achieved a Mexican standoff. They’ve asked the Court to dismiss the Trust’s complaint and Team Norsigian’s counterclaim without prejudice. A spokesperson for Team Norsigian has assured me that (a) the team’s authentication efforts will continue ― under the guidance of recognized experts, one hopes, and involving strict forensic testing ― and (b) that they will continue to press their lawsuit against the University of Arizona-Tucson charging illegal civil conspiracy. […] Most-favored-photographer status for Ansel Adams at Yosemite National Park apparently goes back at least as far as 1941, and includes documented special treatment by the Department of the Interior. This included a waiver enabling him to draw down a federal government salary while also enjoying the profits from best’s Studio, his concession at Yosemite ― a conflict of interest according to the policy of the Department of the Interior. […] William Turnage ― who earns his handsome salary from the Trust on the presumption that he understands what a Trust’s regulations do and don’t allow ― didn’t know that a trustee can’t revoke a Trust’s provisions on whim. Thus, while Turnage clearly didn’t intend his attack on Katharine Martinez and the Center for Creative Photography as ineffectual, it turned out that way ― due to his ignorance and professional incompetence. Which inefficacy he now claims as a defense. The mind boggles. […] |
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David W. Streets . . . He’s Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!
The triumphant return of David W. Streets to the limelight does not bear on the Norsigian-Adams contretemps, but on a brand-new situation: the 1980 garage-sale purchase by one Anton Fury of anonymous negatives of Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield. Streets has, so far, behaved in a more circumspect manner than he did with the arguable “Ansel Adams” negatives. Instead of proposing authorship or pretending to other expertise, as he did with the Norsigian material, Streets is . . . crowdsourcing. […]