Where are the Notmans?
The 650,000 images by the Notman firm are the jewel in the crown of the McCord Museum’s collection — a priceless record of the Confederation era, when Montreal was the young nation’s bustling metropolis.
But it’s been a generation since the McCord staged its last major exhibition on photographic pioneer William Notman (1826-91), who operated 20 studios across Canada and the United States at the height of his success in the 1880s.
“Often, when people came to the museum, they were asking, ‘Where are the Notmans? We would like to see them,’ ” said Hélène Samson, curator of the Notman Photographic Archives.
William Notman, self-portrait, 1869-1870.
That desire will be amply sated by Notman, a Visionary Photographer, an exhibition of 300 images and other objects that opened Friday and runs until March 26.
The first Notman show since 1994 (aside from outdoor exhibitions on McGill College Ave.), it is also the first one to present a comprehensive portrait of the Scottish-born entrepreneur, whose recipe for success was a savvy combination of artistic passion, business acumen, networking skills and a flair for jumping on the next big trend.
“What strikes everyone who looks at the Notman Photographic Archives is how much he was ahead of his time, how modern he was,” Samson said.
“It’s about seeing into the future, sensing what changes the cultural, social and political situation will bring in the centuries to come. It’s not everybody who sees that,” she added.
When 30-year-old William Notman arrived in Montreal in 1856, fleeing a business scandal in Glasgow (see timeline), railway construction and new factories along the Lachine Canal were starting to transform the city into Canada’s pre-eminent transportation and industrial hub. Montreal would grow from 58,000 residents in 1852 to 325,000 (including the suburbs) in 1901. Anglophones — in the majority from the early 1830s to the mid-1860s — would soon be outnumbered as rural Quebecers poured into the city in search of factory jobs.
Master Southam, 1886; Miss Esdaile with a dog, 1880.
Notman was not the city’s first photographer, but he would become its most famous one. The new medium had spread around the world like wildfire since 1839, when French theatrical painter Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre invented the daguerreotype — an image on a silver-plated copper sheet. In the 1850s, photography on paper supplanted the earlier form.
Notman, who first made his mark photographing the construction of the Victoria Bridge from 1858 to 1860, fully exploited the camera’s potential to capture the zeitgeist of an era of newfound wealth, urban poverty and continental expansion.
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Members of the rising bourgeoisie flocked to his Bleury St. studio to pose for miniature portraits known as “cartes de visite.” The 2 ½- by 4-inch calling cards were presented to friends and acquaintances or pasted into albums — another Victorian craze.
Notman sent out teams — notably his son, William McFarlane Notman — to photograph the building of the transcontinental railway, creating iconic images of the vast new nation.
“He really contributed to developing an imagined landscape for people who didn’t travel, for people who were looking at pictures in a book,” Samson said.
A. H. Buxton, 1887.
Back in the studio, he used tricks of the trade like puffy lambswool to simulate snow and a polished zinc plate to imitate ice, to create “outdoor” scenes glorifying winter sports like tobogganing, snowshoeing and skating.
“He contributed greatly to developing the image of the vigorous Canadian facing a difficult climate, who loves the outdoor life, which became an aspect of Canadian identity,” Samson said.
What sets the exhibition apart from previous ones curated by legendary Notman specialist Stanley Triggs, she said, is that rather than just addressing one facet of Notman’s work — like his composite photos — this one is a full-scale retrospective of his life and career.
It’s hard to know which pictures Notman snapped himself and which were taken by his sons and employees, so the exhibition focuses on the output of the studio as a whole.
Starting in the 1990s, the digitization of some 70,000 Notman images made them known to a far wider audience, including researchers, authors, artists and filmmakers.
But there’s no substitute for the real thing, Samson noted.
“It was essential to revisit Notman and introduce him to the public, and especially to show the originals,” she said.
Tramway crossing under construction, Ste-Catherine and St-Laurent, 1893.
Marking Montreal’s 375th anniversary and Canada’s 150th, the show demonstrates a dynamic interplay between original prints from Notman’s era and multimedia installations.
“There’s a wonderful dialogue between the objects from that period and what you can do with them today, because digitization allows us a lot of flexibility in how we present the images,” Samson said.
Sitting Bull, 1885; Mrs. Walter Wilson, 1866.
Visitors will discover new treasures from the collection that were not featured in Triggs’s definitive 1967 book Portrait of a Period: A Collection of Notman Photographs, she said, as well as classics like Notman’s 1885 portrait of Sitting Bull, the Lakota Sioux chief who led his people’s resistance to the United States government.
“We’ve really made an effort to show new photos,” Samson said.
Timeline
William Notman and his sons, William McFarlane, George and Charles, 1890.
1826 William Notman is born in Paisley, Scotland.
1851 Notman becomes a partner in his father’s wholesale woollen cloth business in Glasgow, where the family moved in 1840.
1856 When the business suffers in an economic downturn, Notman fabricates duplicate orders to make the balance sheet look more favourable, but the fraud is discovered. Notman flees to Canada and gets a job with the Montreal dry-goods firm Ogilvy, Lewis & Co.
With money borrowed from his employer, Notman opens a photographic studio in his house on Bleury St. to supplement his income during the winter months, when shipping halts.
William Notman studio, 17 Bleury St., Montreal, about 1875; Notman studio, Drummond St., Montreal, 1934-1935.
1858 Notman receives a contract to photograph the Victoria Bridge, which is under construction. The high quality of his photos draws international recognition.
Details from group of stereographs from the Maple Box: Victoria Bridge, Montreal, 1859–1860.
1860 Albert, the Prince of Wales, visits Montreal to inaugurate the Victoria Bridge. Notman presents the prince with a portfolio of photographs in an ornate bird’s-eye maple box. Queen Victoria is reportedly so pleased with the gift that she names Notman as Photographer to the Queen, an endorsement Notman engraves over his door.
Notman and other art-lovers found the Art Association of Montreal — the forerunner of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts — which meets in Notman’s studio.
Notman popularizes “cartes de visite” — 2 ½- by 4-inch calling cards with small photos mounted on them. These, in turn, fuel a craze for photo albums.
1861 Notman inaugurates a system for numbering and identifying photographs that the McCord Museum still uses to this day.
1863 Notman publishes the first instalment of Photographic Selections, a limited-edition book of photos of paintings by great artists.
1865 Notman publishes the first instalment of Portraits of British Americans, biographical sketches of prominent Canadians illustrated with photographs.
1866 Notman introduces 4 ¼- by 6 ½-inch “cabinet card” photographs, which soon replace cartes de visite as the most popular format.
Notman opens a studio in Boston.
McGill gymnastics group, 1891.
1868 Notman opens studios in Ottawa and Toronto.
1869 Notman opens a studio in Halifax.
George-Édouard Desbarats and William Augustus Leggo publish the first halftone — a photograph of Prince Albert by Notman — in the Canadian Illustrated News.
1872 Notman opens new branches to photograph students at Ivy League campuses like Harvard and Yale.
Notman opens a studio in Saint John, N.B.
1873 Eldest son William McFarlane Notman joins the business.
1876 Notman moves to a house (still standing) at 51 Sherbrooke St. W.
1877 Notman opens a studio in Albany, N.Y. He later expands to Newport, R.I., Saratoga, N.Y., and New Haven, Conn.
1878 Notman is among a group of investors who launch the Windsor Hotel, where he opens a studio catering to tourists.
1882 William McFarlane Notman becomes a partner.
100-ton mountain engine on the Canadian Pacific Railway, near Field, B.C., 1889.
1884 William McFarlane Notman travels across Canada to photograph construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
1891 Wm. Notman & Son opens a studio on Madison Ave. in New York.
William Notman dies of pneumonia on Nov. 25.
1913 William McFarlane Notman dies of cancer; his brother Charles takes the helm.
1935 Charles Notman sells the business to Associated Screen News, a Montreal-based producer of newsreels and documentaries, but continues as manager.
1955 Following the death of Charles Notman, a consortium buys the Notman archives and donates them to McGill University, where they are held in the McCord Museum, then part of McGill. In the 1980s, it becomes a private museum.
Scenes from the Notman archives
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Anna and Louisa Spence, 1883
Eighty per cent of the photos in the Notman collection are portraits, said curator Hélène Samson.
“I have a real weakness for Notman’s portraits,” she said.
“I find it’s deeply moving to be face to face with a portrait by Notman of someone from that era, who’s looking back at us, perfectly in focus, with nothing coming between us and the person in the photograph. Even if it was taken 100 or 150 years ago, you feel as if you’re meeting someone, you are in that person’s presence. And people will have that sensation when they visit the exhibition.”
While many of Notman’s clients came from the privileged classes, he photographed people from all walks of life, including many of his own employees. Sisters Anna (left), 23, and Louisa Spence, 25, might look like ladies of leisure in this studio portrait, where Anna appears to lean on a tree while Louisa reclines in a hammock, holding a parasol. But in reality, they were working girls living with three other siblings in the St-Louis district, between St-Laurent and St-Hubert Sts. Louisa worked at the Notman studio from 1876 to 1891, probably as an artist. Anna worked there for two years, possibly also as an artist. She later opened her own photography studio.
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Mrs. Frothingham and family, Cacouna, Que., 1871
Originally from Portland, Maine, the Frothingham family co-owned Canada’s largest hardware firm, Frothingham and Workman. Unitarians, the lively and eccentric Frothinghams held progressive views; Mrs. Frothingham was a cousin of author Louisa May Alcott.
“All of the photos of the Frothingham family are out of the ordinary,” said Samson. One portrays father George Frothingham’s pet skunk, while another shows him whispering a secret into his small daughter’s ear.
Far from being ostentatious or stuffy, portraits of the Frothinghams depict family members doing their own thing. On the porch of their summer cottage in Cacouna, near Rivière-du-Loup, Harriet, about eight, clutches her dog while her older sister concentrates on a needlepoint. The hand-woven basket and Mrs. Frothingham’s shawl suggest a First Nations influence.
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The Bounce, Montreal Snow Shoe Club, 1886
Studio photos depicting winter sports were “a Notman signature,” Samson said.
“He simulated snow in the studio. People wear winter coats dusted with snow,” she said.
Winter weather was suggested not only by props and painted scenery, but also by retouching photos to simulate falling snow.
This composite photo shows members of the Montreal Snow Shoe Club throwing Lord Stanley — the governor general best remembered for the hockey trophy — in the air. The rite was reserved for guests of honour, new members or winners of snowshoe races.
Notman’s composite pictures were created by layering individual photos against a painted or photographed backdrop.
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Bonsecours Market, 1904
Montrealers have the Notman studio to thank for hundreds of images that allow us to revisit the city’s leafy bourgeois neighbourhoods and teeming industrial districts at the turn of the 20th century.
The Bonsecours Market, which opened in 1847, was the city’s main farmers’ market for over a century. Today, the domed neoclassical building, with its Greek Revival portico, is considered one of Canada’s greatest heritage jewels. But in the years when the harbour was a throbbing hub for transcontinental trains and steamships, it was a living, working building, not a sanitized tourist trap. You can almost smell the horses and hear the cries of longshoremen in this street scene, where shoppers browse the wares at a vegetable stand.
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View of Lake Louise from the outlet, 1889
This view of Alberta’s Lake Louise in Banff National Park has been featured in countless postcards and tourist brochures. Here is the original.
Notman sent photographers across Canada to document the country’s majestic scenery and primary industries like logging, mining and fishing.
Notman’s eldest son, William McFarlane Notman (1857-1913), started working for his father at age 15 and became a partner at 25. Starting in 1884, he photographed the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, capturing breathtaking landscapes that became icons of Canadian identity.
“This is the first photograph of this view of Lake Louise, which became the view that has been photographed thousands of times,” Samson said.
“A guide brought him there, and he said, ‘This is the spot.’ ”
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Young Niisitapiikwan (Blackfoot) warrior, near Calgary, 1889
William McFarlane Notman took sensitive and powerful images of First Nations people living along the route of the transcontinental railway, conveying a disappearing way of life.
In all, he made eight trips to western Canada from 1884 to 1909, recording the growth of frontier towns. He also photographed Newfoundland outports and many regions of Quebec, including the Charlevoix, Lac St-Jean and the Eastern Townships.
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