Mike Disfarmer (1884-1959), commonly known as the people’s photographer of Heber Springs, Arkansas, spent his life photographing the people of his rural town. Charging just pennies a picture, Disfarmer photographed his sitters under natural light against a plain backdrop, with no conventional props to be found in his studio. He never directed his clients, but rather captured them exactly as they came to him – with their own clothes and their own expressions. His work strikingly conveys both the solemnity of the era and the resilience of rural Americans living through the Great Depression, World War II, and beyond. With no real friends of his own, Disfarmer experienced most of his socialization through his work, making solitude and isolation key to understanding his eccentric lens.

Until 2004, it was believed that no vintage Disfarmer prints survived in any meaningful amount. His negatives – rescued from his studio and printed posthumously in the 1970s – had established his reputation, but represented only a small part of his practice. In 2004, when a Heber Springs couple sold fifty vintage family portraits to private collector in New York, suddenly Disfarmer’s market skyrocketed. For the first time, audiences could see Disfarmer’s photographs as his sitters and neighbors received them – often postcard or wallet-sized, with playful borders and tones to demonstrate the intimacy of Disfarmer’s craft.

This charming group of portraits originally comes from Disfarmer’s assistant, Bettie Utley, and have remained in the family for almost eighty years. Most of the sitters are relatives of Ms. Utley while others are of friends and unidentified subjects.