NPR’s All Things Considered wraps up the current state of the Ansel Adams controversy in this report and talks to the photographer who has been hired to print from the negatives:
[audio:http://www.artmarketmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Ansel-Adams-Negatives-Round-Up.mp3|titles=Ansel Adams Negatives Round Up]
“First of all let me be very clear, I’m agnostic as to who took the photographs. All I’m doing is printing them,” says photographer Jesse Kalisher who was commissioned to make the prints from Norsigian’s negatives. Kalisher’s work is in some major galleries, including Smithsonian museums and the Louvre. Kalisher is kind of the man in the middle; he says he’s already gotten some angry e-mails from Ansel Adams fans.
“They were titled things like, ‘Shame on you,'” he says. They “took me to the woodshed in typically rude terms.”
Kalisher is quick to admit that what he produces will not be Ansel Adams prints. Adams was a master in the darkroom. His art was as much the printing process as taking the picture. Still, Kalisher is thrilled to be working with these images.
“Regardless who created the negatives, they deserve to be preserved for history — and they certainly cry out to be printed,” he says.
