By Adam Popescu

Beverly Hills art dealer David Streets is one of the main players in a story that keeps getting stranger.

It started 10 years ago at a garage sale in Fresno, when a painter named Rick Norsigian bought a box of photo negatives for $45. Last month, Norsigian brought that box to Streets’ art gallery for appraisal, where Norsigian learned he may be sitting on 65 Ansel Adams lost negatives, and a good deal of money.

A press conference was called at Streets' self-same gallery, wherein the gallery owner claimed the negatives were in fact Adams' lost work, with an appraised value of $200 million. Authenticity claims rested on two handwriting experts' opinions that Virginia Adams' handwriting appears on the manila sleeves, as well as scorch marks from a 1937 fire at Adams' studio.

A day later, Adams' grandson, Matthew Adams, disputed the findings, questioning the credentials of the appraisers, and even going as far as to call the events a “scam.”

In a strange twist, David Streets told The Courier that Matthew Adams and the Adams Foundation announced that they want to work with Norsigian, who Streets now represents at his gallery. No images have been sold at this time, Streets said.

On Thursday, Norsigian’s attorney Arnold Peter called The Courier, clarifying that the Adams family agreed to further authentification from the University of Arizona’s Center for Creative Photography, which retains the Adams archives.

Peter, speaking on behalf of Norsigian, said they were open to an independent panel of experts. If the negatives turn out to be authentic, the Adams family could claim an interest in copyright.

The Adams family reported that at the time of Ansel's death in 1984, the estate controlled the only 40,000 negatives. Streets disputes that number.

“What's to say there couldn't be 40,065 or 42,000, 45,000,” Streets asked.

Clouding matters further, is Streets' own checkered past. A convicted felon, he has worked at galleries in New Orleans before coming to Beverly Hills, wherein he left on less-than-amicable terms. When asked about his youth, Streets described bouts with clinical depression which pushed him into crime, including petty theft, fraud, and check-kiting.

Some in the art world, like appraiser James M. Goodman, question the validity of the whole situation. Goodman is a founding member of the Southern California chapter of the International Society of Appraisers, a former president of two auction galleries who handled the estates of Judy Garland and Mary Pickford, and has worked as a consultant for the FBI, IRS and The Department of Justice.

“I think there are a number of red flags,” Goodman said. “According to international art law, the direct heirs of an estate have final say on authentication. If in fact, and based upon what we've heard and seen, the heirs of Ansel Adams have disavowed any ownership whatsoever, any authorship whatsoever, that in and of itself would seem to be to be sufficient. But there was another thing I found interesting, and that was if in fact they had claimed or agreed that they were by the hand of Ansel Adams, that would have precluded all of those individuals involved in producing them for purposes of sale from doing so.”

Buying a work of art does not necessarily buy the rights to reproduce, Goodman said. Goodman explained that his understanding of the law would not give Streets' gallery the right to reproduce the images.

In an e-mail to The Courier, Streets explained the Adams Foundation's choice to side with his gallery and Norsigian.“I think they see that they cannot discredit us, embarrass us and that we are not going way,” he wrote. “We are focused on finding the truth of these historic negatives and focused on only that and our upcoming historic Beverly Hills show on Sept. 25 at my gallery.”