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July 27, 2007
Chronicler of the province
Immigrant was a legendary photographer in early days.
OLGA LIVSHIN
For years, chroniclers were mostly monks, sitting in their tomb-like
cells, studiously reporting the events that passed outside the monastery
walls. With the advent of technology at the end of the 19th century,
a new breed of chroniclers emerged – photographers. Unlike
the monks, the photographers had to step outside the doors of their
studios to report life in all its diversity. Many historians consider
one such man, the photographer Leonard Frank, to be the prime chronicler
of British Columbia.
Frank was born to Jewish parents in Germany in 1870. His father
was a small-town photographer, but Frank didn't wish to follow in
his father's humble footsteps. Ambitious and adventurous, the young
man craved a more exciting life. Upon learning about the Gold Rush
in California, he left home at the age of 22 to pursue gold and
his destiny.
He didn't find gold. By 1894, Frank had made his way to British
Columbia. He settled on Vancouver Island, in Port Alberni, and worked
in the mines and as a sales clerk until he opened his own small
shop. He was granted citizenship in 1897. Around that time, he is
said to have won his first camera as a prize in a local lottery.
Although he had discarded his father's trade a few years earlier,
Frank started taking pictures with his new camera. He photographed
the citizens of Port Alberni, the magnificent mountains and the
industrial outposts. Mines and logging camps, road-building crews
and engine-repair shops were among his favorite subjects.
Travelling extensively, he lugged his heavy box camera and his tripod
all over Vancouver Island and the mainland, capturing in his photographs
the people and the technology that embodied 20th-century British
Columbia. Frank matured as an artist in rhythm with the province's
industrialization. He immortalized on his plates, and later on his
negatives, the speeding progress of the province: the first car,
the first train, the first bridge.
Being an astute businessman and sensing the technocratic turn of
history, he soon became an exclusively industrial photographer,
taking major contracts from the B.C. logging and mining companies.
After the first publication of his photos in 1907 in the local Port
Alberni newspaper, Pioneer News, Frank published continuously
in most Canadian newspapers and magazines.
International recognition followed. In 1910, the B.C. government
commissioned Frank, as the best professional photographer of the
area, to produce the photo exhibits for the Sportsman's Show in
Vienna. The famous Collier's magazine once offered Frank
a two-page spread for his photos.
Frank's star was on the rise when the First World War started in
Europe. Patriotism reared its head in Canada, and the public attitude
towards former immigrants from Germany changed drastically. After
a few ugly episodes in Port Alberni involving hostile crowds and
some citizens of German origin, Frank made the decision to relocate
to Vancouver.
He was well known in the city even before he arrived, so the B.C.
government commissions soon found him in his new home. In later
years, Frank covered all the important diplomatic visits to British
Columbia, including those of American presidents and British royalty.
An acknowledged master, Frank took assignments from all the principal
newspapers and magazines in Canada. He also received contracts from
a number of large Vancouver corporations. He created pictures of
the Vancouver fire department and an Indian settlement in northern
British Columbia, the halibut processing factory and the log rafts
on Powell River. He recorded the different stages of construction
of the Marine Building and the Lions Gate Bridge, and retained for
future generations such priceless images as the world-famous pianist
Sergei Rachmaninoff at the Vancouver railway station, the first
planes at Vancouver Airport and the first cars speeding along Granville
Street.
Impressed by the quality of Frank's work, the National Geographic
Society accepted a collection of his prints for their magazine.
Other international publications, including the New York Times,
also appreciated Frank's talent and published his pictures. His
fame as a photographer, the master of black and white, had even
spread to Europe. In 1937, Britain's Royal Photographic Society
bestowed membership on Frank. In 1939, the B.C. Department of Trade
and Commerce honored Frank with a commission to create the photographic
exhibits representing British Columbia at the San Francisco World
Fair.
After an illustrious career that started at the end of the 19th
century, Frank died in his sleep in 1944. He left behind a legacy
of about 50,000 images that preserved forever our province's grandiose
landscapes and documented almost 50 years of industrial development
in B.C. Many of these images are now in the collection of the Jewish
Museum and Archives of B.C.
In recognition of Frank's contribution to B.C. history, Jewish historian
Cyril Leonoff compiled a photo album of more than 200 of Frank's
photographs, An Enterprising Life, published in 1990. Another
tribute to Frank, the documentary Copyright: Leonard Frank,
directed by Eli Gorn, was a part of the television series A Scattering
of Seeds – The Creation of Canada.
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer.
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