John Vanderpant
He made his living doing portrait work while becoming known as a major member of the International Modernist photography movement in Canada.
Although expected to take over his father's tobacconist business, Vanderpant developed artistic passions especially those related to music and literature.
[2] In 1910, while still registered with the University of Leiden, Vanderpant started working as a photojournalist for the magazine Op de Hoogte [Well Informed].
[2] Vanderpant's portrait work reflected a Pictorialist influence; the artist often used soft-focus lenses to craft evocative images of his subjects.
In 1920, he founded the New Westminster Photographic Salon as part of the Fine Arts Gallery of the British Columbia Annual Provincial Exhibition.
[2] Painters such as Emily Carr, A. Y. Jackson, Jock Macdonald, Max Maynard, Frederick Varley, and W. P. Weston exhibited at the Galleries.
Moreover, in 1931, Vanderpant exhibited what is likely the first Canadian showing of prints by the American photographers Imogen Cunningham and Edward Weston.
[5] While Vanderpant started as a pictorialist, his work moved from soft focus and romanticized images to more modernist compositions.
[2] In 1929, he toured Central Canada and had a solo exhibition at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto and one at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa.
His photography became more experimental and modernist — a notable example is his photograph Temples of Today, c.1934, a stark image of towering grain elevators.
[3] In 1932, Vanderpant had a solo exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery that demonstrated his fascination with the beauty found in everyday items such as wrapping paper, light bulbs, stacks of dishes or books, or blocks of wood.
Vanderpant died of lung-cancer in Vancouver in 1939, at age fifty-five, leaving behind his studio and an extensive legacy of work.
[1] In 1926, Vanderpant was honoured by being named a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, in London.
