Disfarmer

Mike Disfarmer (1884-1959) was an American photographer whose portraits of everyday people in rural Arkansas gave them a sense of dignity.

Born Mike Meyers, he changed his surname to "Disfarmer" to break with his family's agrarian roots, the first move in a maverick career that embraced both obscurity and a rigorous aesthetic.^{[citation needed]} Disfarmer maintained a portrait studio in his hometown of Heber Springs, Arkansas, and photographed members of the local community for small fees.^{[citation needed]} But his "penny portraits" were far more than mere keepsake photographs. Employing a stark realism and often lengthy, unnervingly mute sitting sessions, Disfamer produced a consistent stream of portraits that strip his subjects into an uncanny intimacy.^{[citation needed]} His photographs capture the essence of a particular community in a particular time with piercing solemnity and a touching simplicity. His reclusive lifestyle has left many details of his life obscure or uncertain.

A large cache of negatives shot by Disfarmer were found in the 1970s in Heber Springs by Peter Miller who spent a year on a bicentennial grant cleaning, preserving and catalogueing the negatives. Subsequently, two exhibitions of Disfarmer's own prints were held.^[1]

In 2008, a picture of Disfarmer was used on the 80th Academy Awards telecast as the alleged portrait of Roderick Jaynes, the film editing pseudonym of the Coen brothers, who was nominated at that ceremony for editing the Coens' film No Country for Old Men.^[2]Disfarmer's photo was supplied to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences by the Coens after Jaynes' nomination.^[3]

He was the subject of a puppet-theater production in New York in 2009.^[1]

His gravesite has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Disfarmer 11/1/10