Upcoming Exhibits
An Enterprising Life: Leonard Frank Photographs from 1900-1944
On display at the Simon Fraser University Teck Gallery
October 13 - December 31, 2012
Available for travel beginning in 2013
Next year we will practise havoc
in that green trench --
the saws will yammer their naggie dirge,
the donkeys will gather the corpses,
the land will be hammered to stumps and ruin
- Peter Trower, “The Ridge Trees”
With support from the Young Canada Works in Heritage Organizations program, the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia has digitized approximately 2,500 photographs from the Leonard Frank Photos Studio fonds.
With support from Young Canada Works (YCW) Building Careers in Heritage and Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN), the Jewish Museum and Archives of BC (JMABC) has begun digitizing the Leonard Frank Photos Studio collection in early September 2011 and will continue through January 2012.
The project enables the digitization of approximately 2,500 Leonard Frank photographs; focusing on his logging industry photographs from 1900-1944 first made famous in Cyril Leonoff’s publication An Enterprising Life: Leonard Frank photographs 1895-1944 (Talonbooks, 1990). At the completion of the project, the photographs will be made available online on the JMABC website and Artefacts Canada, hosted by the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN).
An exhibit will present a biography of Frank’s life and a representative selection of some 50 photographs focusing on the mining and logging industries of British Columbia from 1900 -1944.
Leonard Frank is renowned as one of the greatest photographers in Western Canada. When Leonard Frank (1870-1944) emigrated from Berne, Germany to British Columbia in 1894, it was to seek his fortune in gold. The beginning of Frank’s photography career is attributed to chance – the winning of a crude camera as a raffle prize at the Alberni mining camp. Frank began his career as a professional photographer in the late 1890s while living in Alberni, BC. In 1917, he moved to Vancouver where he pursued his profession with the Commercial Photo Company and later founded the Leonard Frank Photos Studio. Frank photographed significant events and developments in British Columbia’s history.
For more information, email info@jewishmuseum.ca or call (604)257-5199.
Three men and saw standing in front of Douglas fir tree with undercut, near Port Alberni, BC, 1919. Photographer: Leonard Frank. Source: Jewish Museum & Archives of BC; LF.38826
