Leonard Frank, Man beside fallen big spruce, Port Renfrew, Vancouver Island, BC, April 1926. Collection: Leonard Frank Photos Studio fonds; Jewish Museum & Archives of BC; LF.39024.
Leonard Frank: Beautiful British Columbia
September 3, 2012 – January 4, 2013
Teck Gallery
Leonard Frank was one of the most important photographers in the history of British Columbia. He was born in Germany in 1870 and died in Vancouver in 1944. This is the second exhibition of his work at the Teck Gallery—Bridge City: Links for a Fragile Peninsula was shown in the spring of 2010. Leonard Frank had a marvelous feel for composition, making good exposures, documenting labour and how all of these would record the lifeblood of this region, in what is now its recent past. His appreciation for business activity extended not just to picturing it but to running his own photo business as well.
Very few Vancouver residents in 2012 can say, “I was born here”. Because so many people have moved to the city since the late 1960s, few Vancouverites may realize that logging and milling operations such as those pictured here were occurring close to the city until 1940. Some of the pictures in this exhibition show gigantic trees about to be felled, or just felled, within two miles from downtown Vancouver—as recently as the 1930s
This exhibition was curated by Bill Jeffries and is circulated by the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia. The exhibition is made possible with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage, the B.C. Arts Council, and the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver.