Mike Disfarmer

Background

Michael Disfarmer was born in 1884 in Indiana, United States. He moved with his family to Arkansas in 1892.

Career

Mike Disfarmer changed his surname to "Disfarmer" possibly to break with his family"s agrarian roots. He maintained a portrait studio in his hometown of Heber Springs, Arkansas, and photographed members of the local community for small fees.

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 cataloging the negatives. Subsequently, two exhibitions of Disfarmer"s own prints were held. 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 Number Country for Old Men.

In 2009, Mike Disfarmer was the subject of a puppet-theater production by Dan Hurlin, premiered at Saint Ann"s Warehouse in New York City. His life was an inspiration for guitarist Bill Frisell, who was commissioned by the Wexner Center for the Arts to write the score to accompany a retrospective of Disfarmer"s work. Frisell visited Disfarmer"s home town of Heber Springs, Arkansas and created an album "Disfarmer".

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

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Heber Springs Portraits, 1939-1946
  • Original Disfarmer Photographs 2005
  • Heber Springs Portraits: Continuity and Change in the World Disfarmer Photographed

• photography

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