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MICHAEL DISFARMER

1884-1959

BiographyMichael Disfarmer was a portrait photographer in Heber Springs, Arkansas. His invaluable contribution to photography and the documentation of rural America went unnoticed until 1973, fourteen years after his death. This eccentric man's work, which later garnered national attention, captures the people in and around Heber Springs in the early to mid-1900s with stark realism. Disfarmer's given name was Michael Meyer and he is thought to have signified a rebellion against his rural surroundings and his family by changing his name to Disfarmer. After a tornado destroyed his home in 1926, he built a studio, where he lived and worked until his death.

Disfarmer's simple approach and stark realism characterized the "penny portraits" of the country farmers and ordinary people surrounding Heber Springs. His subjects, sometimes an individual, sometimes groups or families, were rarely captured smiling or interacting. Instead, they have a natural, often solemn expression, never coerced. Disfarmer's photographs can be mistaken for those taken by artists and government photographers during the Depression to document the American human condition, but his images are not intended to be among those. Instead, many have noticed his unfailing ability to capture those sentiments despite the intention that the photographs be "penny portraits." The result is a collection of images of ordinary rural people that captures the essence of a time, a place, and the people who occupied it.

http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=455, accessed on 3/26/12
Link to a longer bio. - http://disfarmer.org/Disfarmer%20Bio.htm

Entered by Kirsten Weber, curatorial assistant, 3/27/2012

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