Disfarmer: the Vintage Prints.

Photographs by Mike Disfarmer. Texts by Edwynn Houk, Gerd Sander, Richard B. Woodward, Michael P. Mattis

Powerhouse Books, New York, 2005. 234 pp., 157 duotone illustrations, 7.5x9.75".

Mike Disfarmer is a true American eccentric. Born Mike Meyer, he changed his name to distance himself from both the surrounding farming community of his native Arkansas and from his own kinfolk—claiming that a tornado had accidentally blown him onto the Meyer family farm as a baby.

Despite his outsider status, as the resident studio photographer in the tiny town of Heber Springs from 1917–1956, Disfarmer was the ultimate insider, privy to each family’s rites of passage—from first birthdays to high-school graduations, from engagements to anniversaries, from army furloughs to funerals. His studio portraits present the people of the heartland during the turbulent times of the early twentieth century.

Previously, Disfarmer’s work was known only from a cache of glass-plate negatives that had been salvaged from his studio after his death and spanned a fifth of his forty-year career. The culmination of an unprecedented two-year historical reclamation project in which a dedicated team of researchers scoured every family album in every home along every dirt road in Cleburne Count, Disfarmer: The Vintage Prints presents the never-before-seen original vintage prints of the enigmatic photographer throughout his career.
By now his story is well known: born Mike Meyer in 1884, Disfarmer legally changed his name to declare what he wasn't, and spent his career as the studio photographer of Heber Springs, Arkansas, and died completely alone and unknown in 1959. Glass plate negatives taken from his studio after his death introduced him to the world.

Disfarmer presents the vintage prints for the first time. They were located during a two-year research project in which a team "scoured every family album in every home along every dirt road in Claburne County, Arkansas." Richard Woodward, in his essay at the end of the book, recounts what we know about the little-known Disfarmer, sketches the world in which he worked and comments helpfully on the portraits themselves. The pride, vulnerability and humanity of Disfarmer's subjects at mid-century in middle America shine through their humble circumstances during the Great Depression and World War II. Made in a more innocent era than ours, the photographs suggest that the barrier between photographer and subject was possibly less, but that doesn't diminish the accomplishment of Disfarmer's highly refined seeing. His pictures are tender and touching. He manages that rare feat of forever shaping our image of a time and place.

Disfarmer is a triumph of book making. The earnest front and back cover portraits, with bold type only on the spine, is pure magic. The format, the simplicity of design, pacing of the pictures, quality of paper and printing-all show a respect for the photographs and preserve their delicacy and power. LEAH BENDAVID-VAL

To read the full review of this title please see the Fall 2006 issue of the booklist.

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