LITTLE ROCK — Simple is a word often used to describe the work of photographer Mike Disfarmer. His stark portraits, produced during a long and very strange career in Heber Springs, are indeed simple. But not simplistic.
Like much great art, the simplicity is deceptive; hiding in plain sight, an emotional complexity that seizes the viewer, forcing what is sometimes an unnerving examination of the subjects as well as ourselves.
Forty vintage prints by Disfarmer will be shown at Greg Thompson Fine Art in North Little Rock. The exhibition, which opens Friday, features studio portraits from 1916 to 1946. It hangs through May 12.
However simple his images may seem, they exude a steely essence that wafts plaintively from the surface of his prints.
On the other hand, simple hardly describes the man. The somewhat polite word “eccentric” probably comes closest, epitomized by his assertion that he’d been plunked down into his family by a tornado and his claim to be the Lindbergh baby; Disfarmer’s reputation in Heber Springs as an odd person was apparently well deserved. Born Mike Meyer in 1884, the photographer, supposedly under the impression that Meyer meant farmer in German, changed his name from Meyer to Disfarmer.
The enigmatic Disfarmer died in 1959 after a lengthy career documenting, by portraiture, the faces of Heber Springs and surrounding Cleburne County.
But his photos live on. Saved from destruction during the 1970s, they are now acknowledged as works of art. His photographs are in the collections of the International Center of Photography and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
But they’re also in the collections of scores of Heber Springs residents, tucked away in photo albums and attic boxes. A portrait made by Disfarmer became a weekend ritual for many, especially folks in town from outlying areas. The whole experience cost only pennies.
This unassuming work fits comfortably alongside that of photographic icons like Paul Strand and August Sander. His often unnerving photos seemless deliberate than those portraitists, but that is perhaps a ruse.
Placing his subjects against the plainest of backgrounds, most times forcing them to struggle with their own poses, his methods seem most deliberate. His off-putting and many times silent personality further isolated his subjects from the camera.
This forced what was inside of them to the surface and made their eyes into semitransparent mirrors. We see ourselves and them, embracing the subjects’ melancholy or bright enjoyment.
Curator of the show is Little Rock art historian Jennifer Carman of J. Carman Inc., Fine & Decorative Art, who described the prints in the show as those“produced close to the time of the sitting, or dating to the era of the shot.”
An exhibition catalog written by Carman, also a certified fine art appraiser, will be available. The price is $30.
The gallery will also screen the documentary film Disfarmer: A Portrait of America at 2 p.m. April 14. Carman will hold a question-and-answer session after the screening. Admission is free.
“Disfarmer: Portraits of a Lifetime:
Three Decades of Vintage Prints From Heber Springs, Arkansas” Friday-May 12, Greg Thompson Fine Art, 429 Main St., North Little Rock Opening reception: 6 p.m. Friday in conjunction with Third Friday Art Walk Hours: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturdays (501) 664-2787 gregthompsonfineart.com
Style, Pages 27 on 03/13/2012