Son Of Life Photographer Sues Ringling Museum

TAMPA - The son of late Life magazine photographer Loomis Dean filed a federal lawsuit Monday against the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, charging the museum doesn't have the rights to more than 900 Dean works in its collection, valued at upward of $2 million.

Dean was known for his photographs of Noel Coward, Ernest Hemingway and the sinking of the Andrea Doria. Biographies of Dean say he shot photos of circus clowns and crown princes. Dean was born in Monticello and studied engineering at the University of Florida, according to an obituary by The Associated Press. His father was a guide at the Ringling Museum.

The suit by Dean's son, Christopher, says the museum "falsely maintains and represents that it owns each and every Loomis Dean image in its possession, custody or control." But, except for 77 images, the complaint states, the museum cannot prove ownership.

The suit states that Dean "created thousands of iconic images" during six decades. Obituaries say he created 52 covers for Life.

The lawsuit does not give specific descriptions of the disputed images in Ringling's possession, although it does refer to a deed that purports to grant the museum title to "not more than 77 images," described as black-and-white photographs of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus' winter headquarters and of a French Gypsy circus.

The suit disputes the validity of the deed.

Museum spokeswoman Lynn Hobeck Bates said the museum has not yet been officially served with the lawsuit.

"However, the Ringling museum has attempted to resolve the dispute regarding the Loomis Dean circus photographs that were provided by the artist to the museum beginning in 1979," she said, adding that the museum "takes its obligations very seriously" regarding artwork entrusted to it.

Bates said the museum's collection has only circus-related Dean photographs; she could not say how many.

Dean died Dec. 7, 2005, in Sonoma, Calif., at the age of 88, according to an obituary in the Los Angeles Times.

"Dean's leading images included shirtless Hollywood mogul Darryl F. Zanuck trying a one-handed chin-up on a trapeze bar; the liner Andrea Doria listing in the Atlantic; and writer Ernest Hemingway in Spain the year before he committed suicide," the obituary says. "One of Mr. Dean's most memorable photographs for Life magazine was of the cosmopolitan British playwright and composer Noel Coward in the unlikely setting of the Nevada desert."