SuperStock

SuperStock was founded in New York City in 1973 by co-founders Jim Ong and Bill Beermann; in 1993 the company relocated to Jacksonville, Florida. In addition to licensing work from photographers and artists, the company owned its own archive, which by 2003 held more than 250,000 contemporary, vintage, historical, and fine art images.⁠[1][1][1][2][1]

At one point in its development, the company operated studios and created images that it wholly or substantially owned, but it later closed the studios and moved away from creating its own content because photographers were offering it so many images.⁠[1][1]

On April 24, 2003, a21, Inc., a company traded on the over-the-counter market, announced that it had signed a letter of intent to acquire SuperStock, having also announced earlier that month a letter of intent to acquire the New York picture agency Nonstock. a21 planned to operate the two as separate companies, and its president, Haim Ariav, said it would keep the brands separate and not dilute them.⁠[1][1][1][1][1][1]

On February 29, 2004, a21 completed the acquisition of all of SuperStock’s voting common stock, representing 83% of its equity, and SuperStock became a subsidiary of a21, which was then headquartered in Jacksonville. At the time, SuperStock’s primary assets included approximately 900,000 images that it owned or licensed, an approximately 73,000-square-foot facility in Jacksonville, receivables, and cash; about one-third of the images were wholly owned by SuperStock, and the rest were placed with the agency on consignment by photographers around the world.⁠[2][3][3][3][2]

a21 Chairman Albert H. Pleus said SuperStock’s annual sales were approximately $10 million; the purchase price was up to about $5.76 million, not all in cash, and if SuperStock’s wholly owned images met certain revenue projections, the sellers could receive up to $1.5 million in cash over four years. Jim Ong and Bill Beermann stepped down from their management roles and were no longer directly involved in management, continuing in an advisory capacity.⁠[2][2][2][2][2]

In October 2005, a21’s UK subsidiary SuperStock Ltd. acquired Ingram Publishing Limited; in May 2006, a21 also acquired the framed art retailer ArtSelect. a21 thereafter operated through three segments: SuperStock, ArtSelect, and Corporate.⁠[4][4]

On December 4, 2008, a21 and its subsidiaries SuperStock and ArtSelect filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida, Jacksonville Division, and moved under Section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code to sell SuperStock’s U.S. assets to the Canadian picture agency Masterfile, subject to higher and better bids at auction. Masterfile’s offer was $1.5 million, for assets including 350,000 wholly owned SuperStock images. a21 President and CEO John Ferguson said that after exploring strategic alternatives for more than a year and considering the state of the credit markets, the company had concluded that a court-supervised asset sale was the best way to protect the value of its businesses.⁠[5][5][5][6][6][5][5]

On January 16, 2009, a21 announced the auction results: RGB Venture Partners, a joint venture of Rubberball Productions, Glow Images, and Blend Images, won SuperStock’s U.S. assets for $2.825 million, and the English company Ingram Image Limited won the shares of the UK subsidiary SuperStock, Ltd. for $50,000. The court also confirmed the plan of liquidation, under which shareholders received no distributions and unsecured creditors received $125,000.⁠[7][7][7]

In July 2012, SuperStock, still based in Jacksonville, acquired the Seattle picture agency Science Faction Images, whose collection held about 40,000 tightly edited science and high-technology images. Then-CEO Lanny Ziering said the move would let the company better serve its publishing and advertising clients; Science Faction founder and CEO Roger Ressmeyer expressed support for the acquisition.⁠[8][8][8]

In 2025, Superstock Partners LLC announced the acquisition of the complete collection and related digital assets of Danita Delimont Stock Photography, a travel and nature picture agency, migrating more than one million images and more than 250 contributors, with support from the original team through 2026, and keeping the branded danitadelimont.com website live under the Superstock platform. At the time of the announcement, Superstock’s CEO was Stewart Cohen, and the company described itself as a provider of rights-managed and royalty-free imagery serving the creative, editorial, and corporate markets, headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Cohen is himself a commercial photographer and director based in Dallas who started working on his own in January 1985.⁠[9][9][9][9][9][10][10][10]

In the late 2000s, SuperStock’s collection consisted mainly of contemporary photography, with subjects including people and lifestyles, travel, and nature and wildlife; its vintage collection consisted mainly of the Devaney Collection, commercial and advertising photography from the 1940s through the 1960s; and its fine art imagery ranged from prehistoric cave paintings to works by living contemporary artists. Licensing was divided into rights-managed and royalty-free, with a subscription model as well; sales were made directly in markets including North America and the UK, and through revenue-sharing arrangements with distributors in other markets.⁠[4][4][4][4][4][4][4]

SuperStock: Official website: https://www.superstock.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[7]