He. Disfarmer

Cinzia Ghigliano

Wonderfully simple and mysteriously complicated. This is the story of Michael Disfarmer (1884-1959), a smalltown portrait photographer from Arkansas. After the great success of She, Vivian Maier Cinzia Ghigliano tells the story of another giant of American photography whose negatives first came to public attention after his death. Little is known about Disfarmer’s life. He was always dressed in black, tended to keep to himself, and was considered strange and eccentric by many townspeople.

In this picture book, we learn of his turbulent and mysterious arrival to the Meyer’s farm. He believed that a tornado had taken him from his real place of birth and deposited him with this new family. He worked the fields with his siblings, but he always felt different; his great passion was photography since he first saw a camera at a village fair. He eventually started working with the village photographer and later opened a studio of his own.

Disfarmer captured the lives and emotions of the people of rural America and his portraits became appreciated for their directness and unaffected quality, which seemed to reveal the true character of their subjects.

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