Upon its publication in September 1942, Big Doc’s Girl was praised in the New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times, and scores of other publications. Though she always considered herself a musician, Medearis was best known as the author of Big Doc’s Girl (1942), a novel that has the distinction of having stayed in print longer than any other work of fiction by an Arkansan. John Gould Fletcher (1886-1950)īorn in North Little Rock to a doctor and musician. He is buried in a Heber Springs cemetery. Disfarmer's photography has also been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout Europe and the United States.

He captured the lives and emotions of the people of rural America from 1939 to 1945, a defining time in history in which the Great Depression yielded to World War II.Ĭritics have hailed Disfarmer's remarkable black and white portraits as 'a work of artistic genius' and 'a classical episode in the history of American photography.' His unique works are included in the permanent collections of the New York Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Arkansas Arts Center Museum and the International Center of Photography in New York City. Using glass plates, Disfarmer shot his subjects in direct north light creating a unique and compelling intimacy.

He rejected farm life and his family by legally changing his name to 'Dis – Farmer.' The eccentric Arkansas artist taught himself photography perhaps also as a way to escape farm life.Īfter a tornado in the 1930s destroyed his family home where he had worked, he built a studio on Heber Springs' Main Street and became a professional photographer. Born as Mike Meyer in 1884, the sixth of seven children in a German immigrant farming family in Cleburne County.

Washington, Arkansas by Mary Medearis