A federal judge has dismissed two major claims in an ongoing legal dispute over the photographic legacy of Mike Disfarmer, the eccentric Arkansas photographer whose Depression-era portraits have gained significant artistic recognition since his death in 1959. U.S. District Judge James M. Moody Jr. ruled against Fred Stewart, Disfarmer's great-great-nephew, dismissing allegations of conversion and unjust enrichment related to the photographer's collection held by the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts.
Disfarmer's black and white portraits, which capture regular people in rural Arkansas during the Great Depression and World War II, have become iconic representations of small-town America. His stark, emotionless compositions featuring subjects standing stiffly in a bare studio have drawn comparisons to Grant Wood's "American Gothic," with their apparent simplicity now recognized as profoundly artistic by fine art institutions.
The photographer himself remains an enigmatic figure in American photography history. Born Mike Meyer in Indiana, he relocated to the small town of Heber Springs, Arkansas, where he lived alone in his photography studio and never married. Contemporaries described him as eccentric and possibly mentally unstable. His adopted surname "Disfarmer" directly references his German birth name Meyer, which means "farmer" – essentially calling himself "not a farmer."
The complex ownership history of Disfarmer's glass-plate negatives dates back to 1959 when the photographer died. According to court documents cited by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, administrators of Disfarmer's estate sold his entire photographic collection to Joe Allbright, then mayor of Heber Springs, for just five dollars. Museum records indicate that at the time of the photographer's death, his family showed no interest in preserving his photographic work.
The negatives changed hands again in 1973 when Mayor Allbright sold them to Peter Miller, editor of the Arkansas Sun newspaper. Miller undertook an extensive restoration project to save the deteriorating, moldy glass plates, even traveling to Rochester, New York, to learn proper preservation techniques from Kodak specialists. Following this painstaking restoration process, Miller donated the negatives to what is now known as the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts in the mid-1970s.
In his ruling, Judge Moody determined that Stewart's conversion and unjust enrichment claims were filed well beyond the applicable statute of limitations. However, the dismissal does not end the legal battle entirely, as Stewart's original complaint includes eight total counts against the museum. The remaining claims will continue to move through the federal court system, ensuring that the fight over Disfarmer's photographic legacy will persist.
