Lawsuit Over Ansel Adams' Work Settled

I previously blogged about Rick Norsigian claiming to find Ansel Adams’ lost negatives. The Ansel Adams Trust controls copyright to his work and filed an aggressive lawsuit disputing the suggestion that Adams took the pictures and contending that their sale breached commercial trademark. Both sides hired experts, and the art world is skeptical as to whether the pictures truly are those of Adams. Some investigators claim that they are the work of Earl Brooks, a moderately well-known photographer in Delaware.

After months of expensive legal battles, the competing cases were finally settled outside of court this week. While both sides continue to disagree regarding who took the pictures, they decided to resolve the dispute anyways. Each side will pay its own legal expenses, and Mr. Norsigian can sell prints of the photographs as long as he doesn’t market them as Adams’ work.

See Guy Adams, Ansel Adams, the ‘Lost Negatives’ and a $200M Lawsuit, The Independent, Mar. 17, 2011.