Fred Herzog

Fred Herzog D.F.A. (September 21, 1930 – September 9, 2019) devoted his artistic life to walking the streets of Vancouver as well as almost 40 countries with his Leica,[1] photographing - mostly with colour slide film - his observations of the street life with all its complexities. Herzog ultimately became celebrated internationally for his pioneering street photography, his understanding of the medium combined with, as he put it, "how you see and how you think" created the right moment to take a picture.

For the jurist, see Fred F. Herzog.

Fred Herzog
Born
Ulrich Herzog

(1930-09-21)September 21, 1930
Stuttgart, Germany
DiedSeptember 9, 2019(2019-09-09) (aged 88)
Vancouver, British Columbia
NationalityCanadian
Known forColour photographer, who captured Vancouver street scenes
AwardsAudain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts
2014
Websitewww.equinoxgallery.com/artists/portfolio/fred-herzog

Life and career

Fred was born Ulrich Herzog in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1930 and spent his childhood in Rottweil, Germany. He lost both of his parents during the war, and in 1946 Herzog went to work as an apprentice in his grandparents' hardware store. Disillusioned by the ravages of war and the situation in Germany, he emigrated to Canada in 1952 and settled in Vancouver in 1953. During the next several years. Herzog studied photography magazines while working aboard ships for the CPR steamship line, and in 1957 he was hired as a medical photographer at St. Paul's Hospital. In 1961, he became the head of the Photo/Cine Division in the Department of Biomedical Communications at UBC, and in 1970 was appointed Associate Director of the Department. Herzog was also hired as an Instructional Specialist in the Fine Arts Department at Simon Fraser University in 1967, and in 1969 became an instructor in the Fine Arts Department at UBC.[2]

Herzog had a walking route through Vancouver that enabled him to build friendships with other photographers and neighbourhood residents and gave him an acute understanding of the daily life and soul of Vancouver. Over the course of several decades, Herzog produced a substantial body of colour photographs, taking urban life, second-hand shops, vacant lots, neon signage and the crowds of people who have populated city streets over the past years as his primary subjects. Herzog's use of colour was unusual in the 1950s and 60s, a time when fine art photography was almost exclusively associated with black and white imagery. Additionally, Herzog photographed using Kodachrome slide film that was notoriously difficult to print. For decades he remained virtually unknown until his mid-seventies when printing technology caught up, allowing him to make archival pigment prints that matched the exceptional colour and intensity of the Kodachrome film.[2]

A retrospective exhibition, Fred Herzog: Vancouver Photographs, was held at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2007[2] and was the first major recognition of Herzog's body of work. Herzog exhibited his work both in Canada and internationally, including the exhibitions Fred Herzog: Photographs, C/O Berlin, Germany (2010), Fred Herzog: A Retrospective, Equinox Gallery, Vancouver (2012), Eyes Wide Open! 100 Years of Leica Photography, Haus der Photographie, Hamburg, Germany (2015), Photography in Canada, 1960-2000, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2017), and many others. In 2010 Herzog received a Honorary Doctorate from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, and in 2014 he received the Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts. An artist profile on Herzog was featured on the Knowledge Network for the series Snapshot: The Art of Photography II in 2011. In 2014, Herzog's photograph Bogner's Grocery (1960)[3] was released as a limited edition stamp as part of Canada Post's Canadian Photography Series.

Herzog died on September 9, 2019, at age 88 .[4]

Publications
  • Fred Herzog: Vancouver Photographs. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre; Vancouver Art Gallery, 2007. ISBN 9781553652557. Edited by Grant Arnold and Michael Turner.
  • Fred Herzog: Photographs. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2011. ISBN 978-1553655589. With essays by Claudia Gochmann, Sarah Milroy, Jeff Wall and Douglas Coupland.
  • Fred Herzog: Photographs. Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2011. ISBN 9783775728119. Curated by Stephen Waddell and Felix Hoffmann and edited by Hoffmann. Text in English and German.
  • Fred Herzog: Modern Color. Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2017. ISBN 978-3775741811. With essays by David Campany and Hans-Michael Koetzle.

Exhibitions
  • Fred Herzog: Vancouver Photographs, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 2007.[5]
  • Fred Herzog: Photographs, C/O Berlin, Berlin, Germany, 2010.[6]
  • Fred Herzog: A Retrospective, Equinox Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 2012.
  • Eyes Wide Open! 100 Years of Lucia Photography, Haus der Photographie, Hamburg, Germany, 2015.
  • Photography in Canada, 1960-2000, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 2017.[7]

Awards

See also

References
  1. "Leica: the camera that freed the world – in pictures". The Guardian. 13 July 2017. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 6 July 2019. Retrieved 25 September 2018 – via www.theguardian.com.
  2. "Archives and Photography Exhibition Review Fred Herzog: Vancouver Photographs". archivaria.ca. archivaria. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
  3. Mackie, John (22 June 2017). "Canada 150: Fred Herzog, colourful street photographer". Vancouver Sun. Archived from the original on 25 September 2018. Retrieved 25 September 2018.
  4. Ditmars, Hadani (12 September 2019). "Vancouver Street Photographer Fred Herzog has died, age 88". The Art Newspaper. Archived from the original on 22 September 2019. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
  5. "Fred Herzog: Vancouver Photographs, Vancouver Art Gallery". Vancouver Art Gallery. Archived from the original on 25 September 2018. Retrieved 25 September 2018.
  6. "Fred Herzog: Photographs, C/O Berlin". C/O Berlin. Archived from the original on 10 October 2019. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
  7. "Photography in Canada, 1960-2000, National Gallery of Canada". National Gallery of Canada. Archived from the original on 8 September 2018. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
  8. "Fred Herzog wins Audain Prize". National Post. 30 March 2010. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
  9. "Photographer Fred Herzog wins Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts". The Georgia Straight. 10 April 2014. Archived from the original on 21 March 2017. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
  10. "Fred Herzog wins Audain Prize". The Vancouver Sun. 24 November 2001. Archived from the original on 21 March 2017. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
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