Arnaud Maggs Passes
The Master Photographer Has Died
(Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/stephen-weir/arnaud-maggs-dies-_b_2170683.html)
(Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/stephen-weir/arnaud-maggs-dies-_b_2170683.html)
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| After Nadar - self-portrait by Arnaud Maggs. Press photograph courtesy of the Susan Hobbs Gallery |
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Photographer 86-year old
photographer Arnaud Maggs didn't suffer media fools lightly. "If
another reporter asks me how come I have managed to stay active so long, and
what is my secret to long life, I am going to tell him sex and drugs" he
groused as we walked out of the Canada AM television studio.
"What about Rock and
Roll?" I asked. Arnaud thought for a moment, smiled and answered,
"less so".
It was in the late spring and
Maggs was on a roll. He had had a successful show of his works in Toronto at
the Susan Hobbs Gallery. The National Gallery in Ottawa had paid the
ultimate tribute by opening Arnaud
Maggs: Identification a survey
exhibition that follows the senior artist’s production over four decades.
And then, the Toronto based photographer won the
Scotiabank Photography Award - Canada's richest and most prestigious
photography award - and that is where I came in. I had been hired to promote the
2nd annual Scotiabank Photography Award to Canadians.
After winning the $50,000 purse, a book
publishing deal and an upcoming exhibition in Toronto in 2013, the photographer
was media hot. He was in demand. Radio. Television. Newspapers. We campaigned
like he was running for office.
Arnaud willingly made the rounds with me, talking to
the art media about his work, his hopes for the future, and sigh, yes his
secrets for staying young. It was not surprising that he would be asked
about his age. He was trim, fit and dressed all in black. Large owl
glasses, a black porkpie hat and a Cheshire cat smile. He had so much energy.
So much life. He looked 60 yet 90 loomed. People wanted to know if it would ever
end.
It did. On Saturday. After a brief battle with
cancer, the country's most skilled black and white studio photographer passed
away in a Toronto hospice. His wife, Artist Spring Hurlbut, two sons, Lorenzo
and Toby and daughter, Caitlan, their mother Margaret Frew, nine grandchildren
and six great-grandchildren, survive him.
At the time of his death Arnaud was working with
Scotiabank on the publication of a book of his life's work. The European
publishing house Steidl will issue the book posthumously in the spring.
"His legacy will live
on through his art and in the lives of the artists and art-enthusiasts whom he
has touched with his work," read a statement issued by Scotiabank
yesterday. "His work will be celebrated with an exhibition at the Ryerson
Image Centre (RIC) program during Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival 2013.
A commemorative book will accompany the exhibition."
" Works by Maggs,"
continued the statement, "are in many important public collections
including the National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, and the Art
Gallery of Hamilton, Vancouver Art gallery, Art Gallery of Ontario, Art Gallery
of Alberta, Winnipeg Art Gallery." His work has
been shown and collected throughout Canada and Europe (mainly France). In the
United States he was included in Charles Stainback’s Special Collections: The
Photographic Order from Pop to Now organized and toured by the International
Centre of Photography in New York.
Arnaud Maggs began his career as an artist in the mid
seventies at the age of 47, after success as a graphic designer and then a
commercial and fashion photographer. His early work used portraiture to
catalogue the geometry of the face.
For the past seventeen years Arnaud has created work
from documents related to child labour at the turn of the century, French
mourning stationary, the address book of Eugène Atget, a tradesman’s sample
kit, and a series of invoices from 1891 documenting the clothing purchases of a Lyon couple named Gendot. Also for the first time, he photographed in
colour – a subtle understated use of the medium. As with Arnaud’s earlier work,
the means of presentation (the arrangement of photographs in grids) persists,
as does the general concern of classification
My filmmaking associate
George Socka and I interviewed Arnaud for a Huffington Post piece that I worked
on earlier this year. We spent an hour with Arnaud inside The Susan Hobbs
Gallery here in Toronto at the start of an exhibition he called "After
Nadar". (Nadar was the
pseudonym of Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (1820 –1910). He was a famous
French photographer, caricaturist, journalist and balloonist who lived and
worked in the city of Paris).
Maggs was inspired by an
1855 series of photographs that Nadir took of Pierrot, a celebrated
pantomime artist. " Maggs," explained gallery owner Susan
Hobbs, " has “restaged” these photographs but with himself as the
sitter."
"As Pierrot, Maggs
pantomimes making work, collecting, enjoying books and music—activities that
mirror his real life habits and influences in his practice as an artist,"
continued Hobbs. "Objects such as a 19th century death notice envelope and
white enameled jugs, which have appeared as subjects in Maggs’ previous works,
turn up here as props and suggest an embedded historical survey of his work to
date. In Pierrot the Archivist, over stacks of grey archival boxes—a
common sight in Maggs’ studio—Pierrot contemplates a portrait of the artist as
a younger man, a gesture that verges on a contemporary vanitas. In all
of these portraits, Maggs has artfully positioned himself as photographer and
performer to narrate his own past, present, and future."
In the posted interview
Arnaud talks about his exhibition in Ottawa, and about his nomination for the
Scotiabank Award. Socka's interview was one of the last that Arnaud would give
- you can see it at:
Post Script: On the 28th of November there will be a
gathering to honour Arnaud Maggs. The 6pm event will be held in the Great Hall,
Hart House, at the University of Toronto. All are welcome to attend. Organizers
ask, " in lieu of flowers please consider a donation in memory of Arnaud
to Hart House for the Art Committee Acquisition Fund."
RSVPs should
be sent to info@susanhobbs.com.
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